If you have one app on your smartphone that you trust more than any other app, it's probably the app that controls your on-screen keyboard.
I think this is an interesting kind of realization —'because keyboards usually don't even think about opening in the traditional sense. That is, keyboard apps usually do not have an icon in the Android app drawer. They are virtually invisible, at least in that we tend to think about apps.
However, every time you tap text on your device, you should believe it's the keyboard app you're using. And you should believe that there is more on your phone keyboard than what you see on the surface.
Especially with Google's Gboard, Android's default "stock" keyboard as a platform, there are many useful and interesting shortcuts that can save you time and make text typing easier, more efficient and more effective. And the odds are that you have never noticed that most of them exist.
Let's change that. Here are some great invisible options that will bring turbo boost to your Gboard typing experience and help you stay productive when working from your phone.
Gboard Shortcut # 1: Careful cursor control
Have you ever noticed that you need to add or change something a few characters before while typing an email or chat message? We were all there — and even the most patient can aggressively move the batty by trying to place that little on-screen cursor exactly where you want it.
Gboard has a hidden answer. Touch the spacebar with your finger and slide it to the left or right without lifting it. The cursor moves accordingly and you can place the cursor where you want it.
If you slide the spacebar and nothing happens, don't panic. Just tap the gear-shaped icon at the top of Gboard (or if you don't see the icon at the top of your keyboard, tap three-to see the dot menu icon in the same area. Find the gear icon in the big menu). Select Glide Typing in your keyboard settings and make sure the toggle next to Enable Gesture Cursor Control is active and in the on position.
And a bonus tip: If you need more precise cursor control, look for an icon that looks like an "I" in the same topbar menu on your keyboard (if you don't see it). With the "I" there, tap the 3-dot menu icon in the same area, find the item labeled "Edit Text" and drag it to the menu bar. Do you want to detect the pattern here? ). This will display a series of arrows for hovering over and selecting, copying and pasting text accurately.
Gboard shortcut #2: Fast character access
On the surface, Gboard seems to make it a little harder to get special characters like underscores and asterisks, but in reality, you can find and access almost every number or symbol that a language lover wants. There is a very easy way to do it.
Simply touch your finger to the "? 123" key and then slide it up on the keyboard. A screen full of numbers and special characters will appear immediately, just swipe your finger (without lifting) to the desired position. When you let go, the character will be inserted into the text and the keyboard will return to the normal QWERTY panel.
Some symbols (for example, parentheses) have additional special characters embedded in them. As you slide over the key, an ellipsis (...) appears at the bottom of the key. If you leave your finger for about a second, a selection of related additional characters will pop up. The joy of your sliding selection.
Another bonus tip: Get started because Gboard can also display all the basic special characters in the main keyboard interface (in the corners of each character, as shown in the screenshot) You can know exactly where to swipe before. .. You also have the option to press and hold any character to see the associated symbol.
To enable this feature, go back to your Gboard settings. Select Settings, scroll to the end, and activate the toggle next to Press and hold symbol.
Now all those crazy characters are at your fingertips anytime, anyway.
Gboard shortcut #3: Quick capitalization
Whether you're typing an acronym or feeling particularly shout, you may want to capitalize beyond the first letter of a sentence.
And sure, Gboard has hidden shortcuts to make that easy. Touch the Shift key (the up arrow to the left of the "z"). Instead of letting go, place your finger down and swipe to the letter you like. The letters are entered in uppercase and the keyboard automatically reverts to lowercase when released.
Gboard shortcut #4: Quick cap after the fact
It's okay to capitalize as you type, but you may not realize that you need to change the case until you type the word in an email, document, or a very important business-related message.
So what do you guess? Gboard also has a secret shortcut for such situations. When working with text in any way on your phone, double-tap the word you want to adjust to select and highlight it. Then press the Shift button. This is the same up arrow just to the left of the "z" key I was talking about a second ago. The first time you tap, the highlighted word will change to case. Tap it again to make it all uppercase. Tap it again to change the word back to all lowercase.
case close
Gboard shortcut #5: Speedy deleting
You see, we all make mistakes (yes, you too). With Gboard, you can clear the error by simply swiping your finger. Or you may have been instructed not to say it in a better way.
First, go back to your Gboard settings and look under Glide Typing to make sure Enable Gesture Removal is enabled. Now, if you want to erase one or more words, touch the Backspace key (the key to the right of the "m") and immediately slide it to the left. The more you slide, the more words will be highlighted and selected. Don't worry if you choose too much. Slide your wonderful little finger towards the right nib.
When you're ready, take your finger off and say "hocus pocus" if you feel cheerful. That way, unnecessary words will disappear like the wind.
By the way, the important thing here is to perform a long slide gesture. That is, slide your finger and hold it down, as shown in the image above. For years, my instinct was to flick my finger to the left, so I couldn't get this to work consistently. And believe in my words: doing it does nothing but make you feel capricious.
Gboard shortcut #6: The instant-erase fail-safe
Being able to erase many words at once is a great power to behave — and like any other great power, it's very easy to misuse from time to time. If you erase a lot of text (using the shortcuts described earlier) and then realize that you've deleted more than you need, don't worry. There is an easy way to get the word back.
After erasing a series of characters using the Gboard slide erase shortcut, look at the suggestion bar just above your keyboard. Everything you erase will appear there, but it's only a short time before you start typing something else.
In fact, there are also fun little mnemonic devices that you can use to never forget this possibility. Remember this important phrase. If you accidentally erase something, such as a dim laugh, look over the keyboard quickly and tap the text to restore it.
It's catchy
Gboard shortcut #7: The wrong word remover
Swipe-based typing saves you real-time, but no matter how good your keyboard interprets swipes, you can get the word wrong. The next time it happens, keep the following in mind: Gboard has hidden commands to quickly remove words that are misinterpreted by the gesture input system.
If you're swiping and you see a word that's not what you really need, tap the Gboard Backspace key once. This will erase the entire word at once and you can swipe (or manually peck in) it again to display it correctly.
If it doesn't work for the first time, go back to your Gboard settings. Open the Text Correction section and make sure the toggle next to Undo Auto Correction in Backspace is in the on position.
And when it comes to that section of Gboard settings.
Gboard shortcut #8: Smarter spacing
This is actually a double pain. First, be careful. By default, Gboard typically inserts a space after the period each time you press the spacebar twice. I hope you know
But do you know what Gboard doesn't do by default? Entering your own punctuation does not automatically insert spaces. This means that if you enter a period, question mark, or other nice end-of-sentence symbol, you'll have to press the spacebar yourself to see the proper formatting. Pushaw, I say! Such wasted effort. If there's one great way to save time, it's to get rid of such annoying little steps from the equation.
And don't be afraid. My finger-tapping teammates have a little way for Gboard to do that. Within the Text Correction area of your app's settings, look for a conservative option called "Autospace After Punctuation". Oddly enough, as far as I can remember, it's listed as a beta, but in my experience it works consistently well. Tap to activate it and save yourself the trouble of manually pressing the spacebar each time you enter a punctuation mark.
Hey, all those saved seconds are added fast.
Gboard shortcut #9: Suggestion control
There's no doubt that Gboard's next word prediction — the word that appears in the suggestion bar above the keyboard and tries to guess what you want to say next. In fact, they are occasionally off the mark. Sometimes it's ridiculous.
If Gboard never says anything and predicts that you don't want to be suggested again (even if you accidentally typed it in the past and accidentally saved it in your app's robotic brain knowledge), the keyboard will do it for you. You can prevent it from being offered again. Use a simple hide shortcut: Press and hold the suggested word when it appears in Gboard's top bar. This will bring up a trash can icon above the keyboard. All you have to do from there is drag your finger to the trash can and send the word forever.
Gboard shortcut #10: Substitution smarts
We all have stock phrases that we use over and over again. over. (For me, the phrase in question is clearly "more than".) Well, Gboard saves your favorite phrases and time by pulling them up on demand every time you enter a predefined shortcode. Can be saved.
For example, you can type zgot to display the phrase "OK, thank you. I'll check it soon." — Alternatively, type zad to see the full mailing address. You can also set two hyphens (-) to display a properly formatted double-byte dash (—), or set the character tm to display the superscript ™. Nifty, isn't it?
For years, this feature didn't work properly on Gboard, but at some point a good old Google gang came in to fix it. First, open Gboard settings, tap Dictionary, then Personal Dictionary, then select the language ("English (US)", "English (Canada)", "Parcel Tongue", etc. )Tap. (Hogwarts) "etc.).
Then tap the plus sign in the upper right corner. Then, in the first field that appears, enter the word or phrase you want Gboard to remember. In the second field, enter the shortcode you will use to pull up the word. Try to come up with something that is relatively short, easy to remember, and incredibly uncommon in everyday use (don't accidentally trigger during normal typing).
Each time you enter the shortcode you created, the saved word or phrase will appear as a candidate in the center of the Gboard top bar. All you have to do is tap it, and take a moment to marvel at the magic of step saving you have performed.
Don't be surprised too long, you're a stupid gibbon, or you'll lose all that picked up time.
Bonus: If you want a more visual way to avoid tapping your favorite expressions with your finger a few times, you can also pin commonly used phrases to Gboard's built-in clipboard. To get started, look for the clipboard-shaped icon at the top of your keyboard (or tap the three-dot icon at the top to find it and drag it into that area (if it's not already visible).
Gboard shortcut #11: Custom keyboard floating
Did you get a big old phone? Moving the on-screen keyboard to floating one-handed mode can make text input much easier, especially on plus-sized devices. However, you may not want to reduce the size of your keyboard and dock it to one side of the screen.
Therefore, try this. If you want to move your Gboard keyboard to the left side of the screen, hold down the comma key and slide your finger slightly to the right to select the icon that looks like a hand in the box. If you let go, Bum: the keyboard will shrink and dock to the left.
To move to the right, press and hold Enter for 1 second (while the keyboard is in its normal full-width position) and release. And do you see it just by appearance?
Either way, you can return the keyboard to its normal size and standard position by tapping the icon at the top of the sidebar area (the icon with four arrows pointing to the corners of the screen). You can also quickly switch the keyboard from one side of the screen to the other by pressing the left or right arrow in the same area. If you want to move the Gboard to a specific part of the display, move it a little. Left or right of the screen, or even above — tap the arrow icon in a pair of boxes. This allows you to manually adjust the keyboard and place it wherever you like.
Gboard shortcut #12: Fraction action
Hey you! You are! Want to talk fractions without wasting your time? Of course it is! Well, have I ever had good news for you: If you know the secret, finding a fantastically formatted fraction on Gboard is actually pretty easy.
Just press and hold any number on Gboard. This will bring up a popup with a list of common fractions associated with the diagram.
Yet another bonus: This shortcut can be obtained by first tapping the "? 123" key and then holding down the number, or by using the trick to get by swiping the number described in shortcut # 2 above. It works. In the latter case, hold down the "? 123" key and slide your finger to the desired number. Place your finger on that number for about a second and the available minutes will be displayed automatically.
Lemme tell ya: Shortcuts like this make it easier than ever to see a glass half full.
