TYPE FASTER THAN EVER
Here are some
handy tips to type faster on your Android phone using Google’s Gboard
Typing on a touchscreen device is nowhere near as
convenient as typing on a hardware keyboard. Tapping away on a slab of glass
gives you no feedback and isn’t anyone’s idea of fun.
While there’s no absolute solution to this problem,
there are a lot of shortcuts and tips you can learn that can help you type
faster on your Android smartphone. And since you spend a fair amount of time
typing on your Android device, learning such tricks can help you save time
dramatically.
Gboard, previously known as Google Keyboard, has
quickly emerged as a top choice when it comes to Android keyboards. Gboard has
a lot of features, but here, we’ll stick with the ones that help you type
faster.
Insert emojis faster
Gone are the days when you needed to scroll through
hundreds of emojis before you could find the one you needed. To search for an
emoji on Gboard, just long-tap on the emoji icon. Here, you’ll see a search bar
that says Search emoji. Type in a search term, and tap on that emoji to insert
it.
Alternatively, you can also tap on the tiny draw-emoji
icon in the search bar. Here, you can search for an emoji by drawing it. While
I’m not entirely sure how it’ll make entering emojis quicker, it can be handy
if you’re searching for a particular emoji, but you’re not sure where it is or
what it’s called.
Precise control over the
on-screen cursor
No matter how carefully you type, you’re bound to
spell a word or two wrong. Navigating the cursor to the exact character
position can be a challenge on a small screen, hampering your typing experience
and speed. Fortunately, Gboard has a great feature that lets you precisely
control the on-screen cursor.
To see it in action, simply swipe left or right on
the space bar. You should now have precise control over the on-screen cursor.
Also, if you need to delete multiple words simultaneously, you can tap and
swipe left on the backspace key.
Type numbers and special
characters quickly
By default, typing a number on Gboard requires you to
switch to the numbers mode by tapping the ?123 key. But if you happen to type
out numbers frequently, you can enable an always-on bumber row in Gboard. To do
so, go to Gboard Settings > Preferences and enable Number row. Now you
should see a persistent number row at the top of your keyboard.
If you don’t want to enable the persistent numbers
row, you can tap and swipe from the ?123 key to the number of your choice. In a
similar fashion, you can tap and swipe from the ?123 key to enter a special
character of your choice.
Text prediction and personalised
suggestions
Gboard’s Text prediction feature suggests the next
word based on the previous word that you typed. You can tap this suggestion to
enter the word instead of typing it out manually.
This might seem a little counter-intuitive at first,
but it can help increase your typing speed when you get the hang of it. To
enable this, head over to Gboard Settings > Text correction and enable
Next-word suggestions.
While you’re at it, we also recommend you to enable a
few other settings in the same place for a faster typing experience: Suggest contact
names; Show emoji suggestions; and Personalized suggestions, which lets Gboard
learn from Google apps and services to improve suggestions.
Set shortcuts to expand text
automatically
You can teach Gboard to remember the words that you
use frequently and set up a shortcut for them. For instance, I’ve defined a
phrase “hru” that expands to “How’re you doing?”. So, whenever I type “hru”,
the expanded version will be shown in Gboard’s suggestion bar.
Glide typing
Gboard comes with a Glide typing feature that lets
you enter text by swiping through the letters, instead of hitting each key.
Start by placing your finger on the first character and then swipe along the
remaining characters of your required word. It displays a blue trail that shows
you the path of your finger. If Gboard enters an incorrect word, you can
usually correct the word from the suggestions bar.
Glide typing isn’t limited to Gboard, though.
Swiftkey also has one of the best swipe typing features. Then there’s Swype
keyboard, which was one of the early pioneers of the swipe-to-type technology.
Voice typing
Gboard’s Voice Typing feature lets you speak to your
Android phone and have your voice converted into text in real-time using
Google’s speech-to-text engine. To do so, tap on the microphone icon at the
right side of the suggestions bar and start speaking.
Perhaps the best thing about Voice typing is that it
works even without an active internet connection, albeit with reduced accuracy.
To configure it, navigate to Gboard Settings > Voice typing > Offline
speech recognition. Here, you can download a language of your choice.
| Abhishek Kur ve
MM 8JAN18
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