A compact keyboard characterized by a novel key arrangement allowing for an overall reduction in the width of the keyboard while retaining a full set of keys standard to a computer and including a numeric keypad. In the compact keyboard of the present invention, the Home and End keys are located on the row of function keys, while the Down, Left and Right arrow keys are nested under the lowermost row of the text entry and numeric keypad sections of the keyboard. This allows the Insert, Delete, Page Up and Page Down keys to be disposed in a single column as opposed to three columns in the keyboard of the prior art.