Thinkpads Forum

I'm sure this has been addressed many times in the past, but I'm late to the party because I just got my first ThinkPad, a T520. I love everything about it it, except that the positioning of the FN key messes me up. I promptly switched the FN and CTRL key mapping in the BIOS settings.

Now, my problem is an aesthetic one. I want properly labelled keycaps, and since they're different sizes they can't simply be swapped.

I've been searching around, and the only suggestions I've seen have involved begging the keyboard manufacturer for blanks (which they indicated was not successful), using stickers (nope!), or trying to blank out the keys with solvents or mild abrasives (too much work).

None of these is satisfactory. Does nobody make replacement keycaps with proper labelling?!

Black nail polish comes to mind, should be easy enough!

Well, I wasn't planning on keeping them blank or trying to repaint them myself... I am obsessive lunatic, but not quite THAT obsessive!

The right Ctrl key is the same size as the Fn key...so it looks it could be swapped from another keyboard (there are guys on eBay selling individual keys). Then you could just give the original left Ctrl key a "sandpaper treatment" and be done with it. Or you could put the original Fn key there if you don't mind the gap (I didn't try that but it should work).

That's actually a stroke of genius...
I'll have to try swapping the existing keys to be sure it'll work.Thanks for the suggestion!