Typing one character at a time

The onscreen keyboard is cinchy to figure out: Tap a letter key to produce the character. As you type, the key you touch is highlighted. The Android may provide a wee bit of feedback in the form of a faint click sound or vibration.

• A blinking cursor on the touchscreen shows where new text appears, which is how typing text works on a computer.
• When you make a mistake, tap the Delete key to back up and erase.
• When you type a password, the character you type appears briefly, but for security reasons, it’s then replaced by a black dot.
• To type in all caps, tap the Shift key twice. The Shift key may appear highlighted, and the shift symbol may change color, which indicates that Shift Lock is on. Tap the Shift key again to deactivate Shift Lock.

• People generally accept the concept that composing text on a phone or tablet isn’t perfect. Don’t sweat it if you make a few mistakes as you type text messages or email, though you should expect some curious replies about unintended typos.

• Above all, it helps to type slowly until you become familiar with the onscreen keyboard.

Accessing other keyboards

You’re not limited to typing only the characters shown on the alphabetic keyboard. On the Gboard, tap the ?123 key to access the Symbols keyboard. Also available are the emoji and keypad keyboards, as illustrated in Figure 4-4. You can cycle between them.

On the Symbols keyboard, tap the =< key to access the second Symbols keyboard. The !?# key found on the Numeric Input Pad keyboard also accesses the first Symbols keyboard (refer to Figure 4-4).

Tap the 1234 key to access the numeric input pad. A similar keyboard is available in the Phone or Dialer app, though it’s called the dial pad.

Tap the ⤺ key to view the emoji keyboard. This keyboard features several tabs (along the bottom) as well as a scrolling list of categories. Also, use the search bar to look up specific emojis by their meaning, such as “celebration” and “angry cat.”

Tap the ABC key to return to the alphabetic keyboard.

On the Samsung keyboard, tap the !#⤺ key to access the symbols keyboards. Use the 1/2 and 2/2 keys to page between the two keyboard sets.

Typing accented characters

You can access some special characters, such as foreign or accented characters, without having to switch keyboard layouts. Both techniques involve long-pressing a key.

The first trick is to look for a tiny symbol next to a key, such as the 7 above the U in Figure 4-1. Even when you don’t see that symbol, a character might be available. That’s because:

The second trick is to long-press the letter key that looks like the symbol you want. For example, long-press the A key, as shown in Figure 4-5, to access variations on that character. Drag your finger through the pop-up palette. Lift your finger to select a specific, accented character.

• Most keys on the onscreen keyboard feature special characters, though they’re not that obvious.
• If you choose the wrong character, tap the Delete key on the onscreen keyboard to erase the mistyped symbol.

Using predictive text to type quickly

As you type, you see a selection of word suggestions just above the keyboard (refer to Figure 4-1). That's the onscreen keyboard’s predictive text feature. Choose a word from the list to greatly accelerate your typing; the word you tap is inserted into the text.

If the desired word doesn’t appear, continue typing: The predictive text feature makes suggestions based on what you’ve typed so far.

• If predictive text replaces your correctly typed word with something else, tap the Delete key. The replaced word is restored.

• With some versions of the onscreen keyboard, you can long-press a word to see similar words.
• The predictive text feature is unavailable for typing passwords or when filling in forms.
• If the predictive text feature is inactive, see Chapter 21 for information on activating it.

Typing without lifting your finger

If you’re really after typing speed, consider using glide typing. It allows you to swipe your finger over the onscreen keyboard to type words. It’s like mad scribbling but with a positive result.

To use glide typing, drag a finger over letters on the onscreen keyboard. Figure 4-6 illustrates how the word taco would be typed in this manner.

Gesture typing is disabled when typing a password or an email address or for other specific typing duties. When it doesn’t work, tap one letter at a time.

• The glide typing feature was once called gesture typing.
• Refer to Chapter 21 for glide typing settings.

Dictating text

Talking to your phone or tablet works quite well, providing that you tap the Dictation icon and you don’t mumble.

After you tap the Dictation icon on the Gboard, text appears saying that the device is “listening,” as shown in Figure 4-7 on the left. Samsung gizmos may display a card that covers the onscreen keyboard, as shown on the right in Figure 4-7.

To pause, tap the Dictation icon again or tap the text Tap to Pause.

On a Samsung phone or tablet, tap the Cancel (X) icon in the upper right corner of the card to dismiss dictation.

• The first time you try voice input, you might see a description displayed. Tap the OK or GOT IT button to continue.
• Tap misinterpreted words to view a pop-up list of alternatives. Choose an alternative to replace the text.

• Speak the punctuation in your text. For example, you would say, “I’m sorry comma and it won’t happen again” to produce the text I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again or something close to that.

• Common punctuation you can dictate includes the comma, period, exclamation point, question mark, colon, and new line.
• If keys are visible on the onscreen keyboard, you can type them as you dictate. This feature makes it easier to add punctuation, which is a weak spot in the Android dictation feature.
• You cannot dictate capital letters. If you’re a stickler for such things, you must go back and edit the text.
• Dictation may not work without an Internet connection.

Uttering s**** words

The Android dictation has a voice censor. It replaces those naughty words you might utter; the first letter appears on the screen, followed by the appropriate number of asterisks.

For example, if spatula were a blue word and you uttered “spatula” when dictating text, the dictation feature would place s****** on the screen rather than the word spatula.

Yeah, I know: silly. Or, should I say, “s****.”

• The phone or tablet knows a lot of naughty words, including George Carlin’s infamous “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” but apparently the terms crap and damn are fine. Don’t ask me how much time I spent researching this topic.
• See Chapter 25 if you’d like to disable the dictation censor.

Moving the cursor

The first part of editing text is moving the cursor to the right spot. The cursor is that blinking, vertical line that marks the location where new text appears, edited text changes, or cut/copied text is pasted.

To set the cursor’s location, tap the text. To help your accuracy, a tab appears below the cursor, as shown in the margin. Drag that tab to precisely locate the cursor.

After you move the cursor, you can continue to type, tap the Delete key to back up and erase, or paste text copied from elsewhere.

• You may see the PASTE COMMAND button appear above the cursor tab. Use this button to paste in text, as described in the later section “Cutting, copying, and pasting text.”
• Samsung keyboards may feature cursor movement keys. Use those keys to move the cursor as well as the stab-your-finger-on-the-screen method.

Selecting text

Selecting text on an Android phone or tablet works just like selecting text in a word processor: You mark the start and end of a block. That chunk of text appears highlighted on the screen. How you get there, however, can be a mystery — until now!

To select text, long-press a word. Upon success, you see a chunk of selected text, as shown in Figure 4-8.

Drag the start and end markers around the touchscreen to define the block of selected text. Use the action bar to choose what to do with the text, as shown in Figure 4-8. Tap the Action Overflow to view additional commands.

What can you do with selected text? Just like on a computer, tap the DELETE button to remove the block. Type new text to replace. You can also copy, cut, and paste, as covered in the following section.

To cancel text selection, tap elsewhere in the text.

• On some devices, the action bar may appear a top the touchscreen. Icons might be used instead of the text buttons illustrated in Figure 4-8.
• Selecting text on a web page works the same as selecting text in any other app. The difference is that text can only be copied from the web page, not cut or deleted.

• Seeing the onscreen keyboard is a good indication that you can edit and select text.

• The SELECT ALL action marks all text as a single block.

Cutting, copying, and pasting text

Selected text is primed for cutting or copying, which works just like it does in your favorite word processor. After you select the text, choose the proper action: COPY to copy text or CUT to cut the text.

Text cut or copied is stored on the Android’s clipboard. To paste any previously cut or copied text, heed these directions:

1. Move the cursor to the spot where you want the text pasted.

   Refer to the earlier section “Moving the cursor.” The location can also be in another app where text is accepted (and where the onscreen keyboard appears).

2. Tap the cursor tab.

3. Choose the PASTE action.

   The text appears at the cursor’s location, or if any text was selected, the pasted text replaces it.

Some Androids feature a Clipboard app, which lets you peruse, review, and select previously cut or copied text or images. If you see a Clipboard action icon when you go to paste text, tap it to access the Clipboard app.

Dealing with speling errrs

As you plunk away on the onscreen keyboard, your Android highlights misspelled words. A vicious red underline appears beneath the suspect spelling, drawing attention to the problem and general embarrassment to the typist.

Tap the red-underlined word. Choose a replacement from the predictive text part of the onscreen keyboard, or from a list that’s displayed. If the word is correctly spelled but unknown to the Android, choose to add the word to a personal dictionary.

• Words may be autocorrected as you type them. To undo an autocorrection, tap the word again. Choose a replacement word from the predictive text list, or tap the original word to keep it.
• Yes! Your Android has a personal dictionary. See Chapter 25 for details.