How to type dollar sign ($)
Also called dollar symbol, peso sign, currency sign.
Hold Shift with your right little finger and press the 4 key with your left index finger.
Which finger types $
- Finger
- Left index
- Resting position
- F on the home row
- Shift
- Required, held by the other hand
- Hand
- left
No website can detect which finger you actually used — a browser reports the character, not the hand that produced it. The finger above is the one the standard touch typing layout assigns, and it is the one the lessons here train.
What $ is used for
- Prefixes an amount of currency in several countries.
- Marks a variable in shell scripts, PHP and Perl.
- Begins a template placeholder in JavaScript, written ${}.
- Anchors the end of a line in a regular expression.
Where it comes from
It is almost certainly a worn-down “ps”, the abbreviation for the Spanish peso, written with the s over the p until the loop was lost and only the stroke remained. The United States adopted the peso's symbol along with its decimal system, before it had a currency of its own to put beside it.
The mistake people make
In a shell or a PHP file, a dollar sign inside double quotes is a live instruction rather than a character: "$HOME" prints your home directory, not the text. Use single quotes when you mean the symbol itself.
If the key is missing or gives the wrong character
- Windows: hold Alt and type 36 on the numeric keypad.
Practise it properly
Knowing which finger owns a key is not the same as using it without thinking. The Typometer course blocks on the wrong key and names the finger for every one, so the habit forms rather than the knowledge.
Other keys
Related guides
Free, and no account needed.
- Start at level 1: the home rowFind F and J without looking, one key at a time.
- How to learn touch typingWhat actually works, what to ignore, and how long it takes.
- The full typing course415 levels from the home row to code and professional documents.
- Untimed typing practicePractise without a clock and focus on the keys you keep missing.