The keyboard I use with my 2013 XPS 13 is a Logitech K810. I’ve had the keyboard since the end of 2014.

I recall that within the first few months of switching to it I ran into an issue one day when I found that the \ key (backslash) was producing a `, and in turn, the ` key (backtick) was producing a \. After a bit of a struggle with Google I found a gem of a comment that was a reply to someone reporting and asking about the same problem. The reply explained that there was a key combination that triggered this switch and that all that was required to restore the correct layout was to press the same key combination that had been unknowingly used to trigger the swap in the first place. I did so, and, pleased that it worked, carried on with my day happy that pressing \ would actually produce a \ again.

Well, here we are, just over two years later and I’m writing about the problem. Why? Because at some point in the last week I must have pressed that combination again; \ and ` had once again been swapped. Recalling the earlier occurence, but unable to recall the triggering key combination itself I set about using Google to find the answer again. However, search as I did, I couldn’t find a single report of the problem, let alone an answer. It would probably be a lot easier to do so if the results didn’t consist entirely of people asking or explaining how to change operating systems’ keyboard layouts – which is not the issue here, and not something I would need Google to resolve.

I gave up trying to find an answer online and instead rediscovered it by brute force. I was pretty sure that the combination involved Alt Gr, which helped. Soon enough I found it again.

Given the difficulty of figuring the issue out (not even the K810 manual on Logitech’s site makes any reference to this “feature”), I’m writing it up here. If I help just one person get out of the frustrating situation of having \ and ` swapped again where otherwise they’d have been stuck, it will have been worth the 10 minutes it will have taken me to publish it.

So. The combination to toggle the swapping of \ and ` on the Logitech K810 is:

Alt Gr + Fn + the key to the right of left shift (i.e. the one which should be backslash but which won’t be when you’re in need of this combination).