When you’re typing on your iPhone/iPad, and you come to the end of a sentence, you probably tap on the “123” to get your punctuation, and then return to the letter keyboard.
But here’s another way:
When you come to the end of a sentence, just double-tap the space bar. A period will appear and you are in a position to start your next sentence.
I’m trying to train myself to use this, regularly. It’s not easy to change a habit. 🙂
Over the last several years, “throwback Thursday” has become quite popular. Although it is really supposed to be about nostalgia (like old photos), I thought I’d stretch the point, and occasionally post an old (but updated!) “how to” on Thursdays, for the benefit of the many new-device-users who have joined our blog. (or to refresh the memories for those of us who forget!)
Anyone who has done any typing on the iPhone or on the iPad has noticed the multiple steps needed to insert punctuation.
You have to tap the 123 button, tap your punctuation, and then tap the ABC button to return to the letter keyboard. That’s 3 taps!
Doesn’t ONE tap sound better?
Here’s how you can add punctuation with just ONE tap:
When you get to the moment that you need punctuation, put your finger on the 123 button and HOLD. Now, SLIDE your finger to the punctuation you need, and then, RELEASE.
Poof! Your punctuation has appeared in your text, and your keyboard has returned to the letters so you can continue typing.
Easy, breezy. 🙂
As part of my month-long anniversary series, some posts will include information covered previously. Hopefully this way new readers get to see things they missed and older readers might be reminded of things they have forgotten. (This “forgetting” thing happens to me, too!)
Balancing the iPad while you type can be difficult. Holding it with one hand as you type with the other feels a bit unbalanced and the thought of dropping it is just too costly to even consider.
If you split the keyboard, you can hold the iPad securely, and, yes, type with your thumbs. This might not be your choice for all-the-time, and many people don’t like it at all, but for those who do, you may also be interested in some HIDDEN keys once the keyboard has been split.
Before we find those secret, invisible keys, let’s split your keyboard.
Here is how to split your iPad keyboard:
Bring up an email, or notepad or something else where the keyboard appears.
Look for the key with the picture of the keyboard on it that is next to the 123 button on the lower right side. If you tap on that button, the keyboard disappears. But we don’t want to make the keyboard disappear, we want to split it.
To split the keyboard, touch and HOLD that button (that looks like a keyboard). You’ll see a little menu appear that gives you two options: undock and split.
Tap on “split” to split your keyboard. As soon as you tap on “split”, you will see the keyboard separate, and rise up into the lower middle area of the iPad screen. It will also get a bit smaller to fit your thumbs.
Now you can hold the iPad securely with two hands while you type. 😎
The hidden keys are in the blank areas on either side of the keyboard. Just stretch your thumb out a little further beyond the ”t” and you can type a “y”. Tap the blank area next to the “v” and you’ll get a “b”.
This also works if you split the numbers keyboard. Tap the empty space next to the “5” and get a “6” and so on.
Touch and hold the button again to merge the keyboard and re-dock at the bottom of your screen.
Even though I personally don’t use this feature, I just enjoy doing it occasionally to find those secret, hidden, invisible keys. (Yes, I’m that geeky 🙂 )
As part of my month-long anniversary series, some posts will include information covered previously. Hopefully this way new readers get to see things they missed and older readers might be reminded of things they have forgotten. (This “forgetting” thing happens to me, too!)
When you type on your iPad or iPhone, and you need to insert punctuation, you have to TAP the 123 button, then TAP the selected punctuation, and then TAP the ABC button so that the keyboard will return to the alphabet.
That’s 3 taps for each time you need to punctuate. Whew. That’s a lot of tapping.
Here is how to accomplish inserting your punctuation with just ONE tap:
When you get to the moment that you need punctuation, place your finger on the 123 button and HOLD. Now, SLIDE your finger to the punctuation you need, and then RELEASE. Tap – Slide – Release
Poof!
Your punctuation appears in your text, and your keyboard returns to the alphabet so that you can continue typing.
Give it a try: Touch the 123 ….. keep your finger on the screen ….. slide to the punctuation you want…. and release. Cool, huh? 😎
I won’t be able to post on this blog for a few days. New followers might find this a good opportunity to catch up with some earlier posts, especially if you are looking for “how to’s”.
I’m going to select a few that I think might be particularly helpful and add the links, but you can always find posts through the sidebar and/or the archives. There are many more “how to’s” in addition to the ones I am linking to, so if you are so inclined, just scroll through the back posts.
Be back, shortly! 🙂
Caps For Dummies: How to Yell with Just Two Taps
Closing Apps Completely: How to Keep Your iPad and iPhone Running Smoothly
Umlauts and Tildes: How to Find These and Other Variations on Your iPhone or iPad
Tapping the Map App: How to Access Street View on Your iPhone and iPad
QR Codes: What Are Those Dotted Squares and How Do I Use Them?
How to Add Punctuation With Just ONE Tap: Awesome Keyboard Shortcut for Your iPad and iPhone
Emoticons on Your iPad Keyboard: How to Access a Whole Bunch of Emoticons and Lots of Other Things
How to Preview Email on Your iPhone or iPad
How to Bold, Underline or Italicize Your Email on Your iPad or iPhone
Your Phobic iPad and iPhone Screen: How Chemistry Makes It Easy To Clean
When you send text messages, there are probably a few phrases that you use a lot. By making your own shortcut, you can tap only a few keys and your phrase will appear in its entirety.
Instead of typing “meet you in 10 mins”, you could shorten it to “my” or “mt10”.
Instead of typing “love you” you could shorten it to “ly”
Instead of typing your long name, “Reginald Fingersandtoes”, you can just type “rf”.
You get the idea.
This is extremely handy if you use a particular phrase often.
Here is how you make your own shortcuts:
Go to Settings > General > Keyboard.
Once you are on the Keyboard screen, slide down to Shortcuts and tap on “Add New Shortcut”
Now you will see a screen where you will have to fill in two spots: Phrase (the phrase that you would like to be typed out) and Shortcut (the few letters that you want to use as a shortcut).
For my example, I want to make a shortcut for “thank you”. (I’m polite, and I use ‘thank you’ a lot 🙂 )
Enter in whatever phrase that you want to shorten and the combination of letters that you want to use as a shortcut. I chose to type “thx” when I want my phone to write “thank you.”
Tap “Save”.
That’s all there is.
Once I have made my shortcut, whenever I type “thx”, the words “thank you” will appear, just like an auto-correction.
When the day comes that you want to delete your shortcut, just swipe the shortcut to the left and a “delete” button will appear. Tap that, and your shortcut will disappear.
photo credit: Denise ~*~ via photo pin cc
Balancing the iPad while you type can be difficult. Holding it with one hand as you type with the other feels a bit unbalanced and the thought of dropping it is just too costly to even consider.
If you split the keyboard, you can hold the iPad securely, and, yes, type with your thumbs. This might not be your choice for all-the-time, and many people don’t like it at all, but for those who do, you might be interested in some HIDDEN keys beyond the split.
Before we find those hidden keys, let’s split your keyboard:
Bring up an email, or notepad or something else where the keyboard appears.
Look for the key with the picture of the keyboard on it that is next to the 123 button on the lower right side.
(If you tap on that button, the keyboard disappears. But we don’t want to make the keyboard disappear, we want to split it.)
To split the keyboard, touch and HOLD that button. You’ll see a little menu appear that gives you two options: undock and split.
Tap on “split” to split your keyboard. As soon as you tap on “split”, you will see the keyboard separate, and rise up into the lower middle area of the iPad screen. It will also get a bit smaller to fit your thumbs.
Now you can hold the iPad securely with two hands while you type.
Touch and hold the button again to merge the keyboard and re-dock at the bottom on your screen.
The HIDDEN keys are in the blank areas on either side of the keyboard. Just stretch your thumb out a little further beyond the ”t” and you can type a “y”. Tap the blank area next to the “v” and you’ll get a “b”.
This also works if you split the numbers keyboard. Tap the empty space next to the “5” and get a “6” and so on.
I’m not a thumb typer, so I can’t really judge the value of all this, but I think it’s always fun just to find a hidden feature, in this case, an “easter egg” in the keyboard : )
photo credit: Lori Greig via photo pin cc
This hint will help you type a little faster:
Instead of tapping “period > space”, just double-tap the space bar. A quick ‘tap tap’ and a period appears, along with the required space.
An alternative to the double-tap: tap ONCE but use two fingers. You get the same result, a period and a space.
And, if you need more spaces (in spite of the one-space rule discussed here), you can do that, too. Just tap the space bar with three, four or even five fingers to get more spaces.
Anyone who has done any typing on the iPhone or on the iPad has noticed the multiple steps needed to insert punctuation. You have to tap the 123 button, tap your punctuation,and then tap the ABC button to return to the letter keyboard. That’s 3 taps!
Doesn’t ONE tap sound better?
Here’s how you do it:
When you get to the moment that you need punctuation, put your finger on the 123 button and HOLD. Now, SLIDE your finger to the punctuation you need, and RELEASE.
Poof! Your punctuation has appeared in your text, and your keyboard has returned to the letters so you can continue typing. ONE touch instead of THREE. Hurrah!
I have a LOT of photos on my iPhone and iPad, and when I’m all the way down at the bottom of the photo roll, it is very handy to give a single tap and be whisked up to the top of the page. This also works in Safari, and even more handy, in Mail.
To try this, let’s go to Safari and open a website with a long page like Amazon. Once you are on the Amazon website, scroll all the way on down to the bottom of the page.
Now for the tricky part: Although all we need is a single tap in the right place to zoom to the top, the problem is FINDING that right place. So let’s find it: At the very top of your iPad and your iPhone is a black bar with the wireless/3G indicator on the left, and the battery indicator on the right. In my experience, the best way to do this is to touch the black bar just beside the battery indicator on the top right, OR just beside the wireless/3G indicator on the left. Tap either spot and you will make the page scoot from the bottom right up to the top.
Practice. Do it a few times on a webpage, and on your Photo Roll. When you try it in Mail on the iPad, I’d suggest tapping the black bar just above the word “Inbox”.
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