First and foremost: do not try to remove the keys from laptops, gel keyboards, expensive keyboards, or any other non-standard keyboard that looks different from the pictures

This Instructable is to tell the people how to safely, and efficiently swap keys on a standard QWERTY keyboard.

Why would you do this? Well April Fools Day is tomorrow, but also keyboard pranks are good for all occasions.

Step 1: Preperations:

For swapping keys on a keyboard, you you will need the following things:

1. a good flat knife, fingers are in-efficient!

2. access to you victim's keyboard, or a keyboard that is exactly the same that you can swap later

Step 2: Method: Replacing the Keys

This is very simple. I included pictures for each step

1. With your knife, slide blade flat under key

2. Twist knife, this projects the key into the air, catch it, and put it neatly in your work area.

3./4. To place key, line up key on keyboard, and push down hard, you should hear a clicking sound when the key falls in place.

Step 3: Method: Checking Keyboard

This step tells you how good your keyboard is. All you have to do is remove numpad 1, followed by numpad 4, and 2, then numpad 5. If all the button holes match, your keyboard is good. The reason for this step is that F,J, and numpad 5 work differently then the other keys. If you put numpad 1 in numpad 5's slot, and vice verca, you might notice that the keys act differently. i.e. on my keyboard they stick into the slot, and you hav to pry them out with the knife before they look good. This is perfectly fine, and normal. On my other keyboard though, the company gave those keys different slots, which is no huge loss, but somewhat annoying. All you have to do if you have a keyboard like that is to move everything up one slot (into the numbers), and use leet.

Step 4: Strategy: Order of Removing Keys

With even only 15 minutes of experience, anyone can remove keys from the middle of the keyboard. For complete newbies however, I created a strategy to remove the keys easily. First start out by getting rid of the 1. On my example keyboard the ` can be removed, but this isn't the usual case. After removing the 1, proceed down in a diagonal fashion, like in the pictures

*optional* you can also remove the numpad keys by the same method in step 3

Step 5: Strategy: Putting the Keys Back

1. First put back all the keys that you are using to spell you word i.e. April Fools

2. Next put all the letters/numbers back in their original places that you can

3. finish the prank off with adding the remaining keys

Step 6: Efficiency: Quicker Method

Now that you have experience with keyboard re-organizing, you can try the quicker method. Instead of taking all the keys out, and replacing them, you can take out the key you want, take out where you want it to go, and swap them. Do this with all your letters, and it is much quicker.

Step 7: Improvement: Creating Your Own Messages

Since it is almost April Fools Day already, you might be too late to try this prank. But don't worry, key swapping is good for any occasion!

To write your own message, you will probably need to use leet, and remember that you have one of every letter, and two of every number.

Step 8: Returning to Normal

To return the keyboard to normal, just follow this instructable again, and put the keys back to where they were. If you don't know where everything goes, check google images for a picture of a QWERTY keyboard.