Type from a touch screen still remains a great challenge for many people, since it is not so easy to write from the virtual keyboard of our mobile, especially if we want to write fast, which is when we can make the most mistakes when pressing the tiny keys on your keyboard. Luckily, during all this time, touch keyboards have not stopped improving to help us write fast.
In this article we will review the characteristics of gboard that will help us to write faster from the Google keyboard, which comes standard on many Android devices and can be downloaded from the Play Store on those phones that do not have it.
Write with a swipe
swipe to type It is a feature that Swype did not make fashionable more than 10 years ago and that the rest of the keyboards did not take long to copy. For many users, this is the fastest and easiest way to write from the touch screen, since they only have to slide their finger over the keys and the keyboard will find out what word they wanted to write.
Swipe to type a number or symbol
Using the swipe typing feature we can quickly type a number or symbol and instantly return to the alphabetic keyboard. For this we only have to swipe from ‘?123’ button to the desired number or symbol. At the moment that we are sliding from that button, the keyboard automatically goes to show the numbers and symbols and once we release the finger we will return to the alphabetic keyboard to continue writing letters.
Erase catchwords
Gboard hides several gestures, and one of them allows us to delete one or more words at once. For this we only have to swipe from the delete button to the leftand then to the right to cursor mode, to select which words we want to delete when we release the finger.
Use your cursor by gestures
If we have made a mistake in the middle of a word we can use the cursor that hides the space bar. By sliding your finger horizontally from the space bar we can move the cursor.
Activate and configure the automatic correction
Automatic correction can help us write faster, since your autocorrect can correct those words that we have written more in a hurry. In the Gboard settings, in the section of spell check we can make sure that autocorrect is activated. In addition, it is recommended to activate the option ‘Undo automatic correction’ to recover the original text by pressing the Backspace key in case the autocorrect changed a word that we had written correctly by mistake.
Configure your suggestions
In the automatic correction settings we also find the configuration of the suggestions. This allows us that the keyboard shows us in the upper strip the possible words that we may want to write.
Tap double space to insert a period
Continuing in the automatic correction settings we find an option that allows typing a period when pressing a double space. That is, touching the space key twice will put us a point and a space.
Create your abbreviations
Another way that allows us to write Gboard faster is to use its abbreviations. From Settings of Dictionary > Personal Dictionary > Spanish we can add phrases with their abbreviations so that when typing its abbreviation the keyboard shows us in its suggestion strip the complete phrase to be inserted just by touching it.
Save the texts you use the most to the clipboard
If we see that we have to write certain texts very often, such as an email, telephone, ID or address, we can copy that text and pin it to the clipboard so that those text strings are always available on the clipboard.
Add the row of numbers
If we write many letters with numbers and we do not want to be alternating between the letter keyboard and the symbols, we can activate from the keyboard preferences the row of numbers what for always show row of numbers.
Use voice typing
Finally, if a person is reluctant to write from the touch screen, their alternative is to use the voice typing. Here we just have to dictate the text and say by voice the signs of “comma”, “period”, “interrogation” or “exclamation”. For example, we have to dictate “Hello comma how are you interrogation” to write “Hello, how are you?”.
