Keyboard Font for LaTeX

Question

I'm currently writing a user guide containing a lot of keyboard shortcuts. I'm looking for a "keyboard" font where single characters or special keys (like tab or backspace) appear like the "real" key (i.e. with a box around; hope you get the idea).

Is there any package available for this or do I have to wrap one of the existing PS/TTF Fonts?

Answer 1

The keystroke package is your friend.

---

Update:

Sadeq's suggestion could be mimicked very inexpensive by the pgf/tikZ package.

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shadows}

\newcommand*\keystroke[1]{%
  \tikz[baseline=(key.base)]
    \node[%
      draw,
      fill=white,
      drop shadow={shadow xshift=0.25ex,shadow yshift=-0.25ex,fill=black,opacity=0.75},
      rectangle,
      rounded corners=2pt,
      inner sep=1pt,
      line width=0.5pt,
      font=\scriptsize\sffamily
    ](key) {#1\strut}
  ;
}

\begin{document}
  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. \keystroke{Strg} The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. \keystroke{Ctrl} The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. \keystroke{Page $\uparrow$} \keystroke{Esc} \keystroke{F1}
\end{document}

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Answer 2

Another free keyboard font is Linux Biolinum Keyboard. See the following graphic for an example:

Answer 3

the ones with Libertine:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{libertinekey}

\begin{document}

\LKeyStrg\ The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. \\
\LKeyStrg\ The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. \\
\LKeyPos\ \LKeyEsc \LKeyF{1}

\end{document}

Answer 4

You can use the menukeys package.

Example

\documentclass[a5paper,9pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{menukeys}

\begin{document}
 \section{The Manual}
    You can visualize paths \directory{/home/moose/Desktop/manual.tex}
    or menus \menu{View > Highlight Mode > Markup > LaTeX} or key
    press combinations: \keys{\ctrl + \shift + F} is for formatting
    in Eclipse.

    You can also visualize \keys{\tab}, \keys{\capslock}, \keys{\Space}, 
    \keys{\arrowkeyup} and many more.
\end{document}

Rendered

Answer 5

Thorsten Donig's answer is excellent, and provides a free solution. However, if you are in need of a more advanced typographic solution, you may consider buying fonts specially designed to represent "keyboard caps."

One such font is the family of PIXymbols Shadowkey fonts. In my opinion, they are prettier (but much more expensive!)