Google Keyboard, now called Gboard, is a third party keyboard from Google for Android and iOS. If you are using Gboard, you may not be using it to its full potential. This little keyboard has lots of bells, whistles, and more that other third party keyboards don’t have. In order to get the most out of your experience with the keyboard, check out these Google Keyboard, Gboard, tips and tricks:
The Google Search Feature
This is by far the best reason to use Gboard. It includes a Google search bar directly above the keyboard. You can use this search bar to look up anything you want and include it in your messages. Let’s say you are sending a text to a friend about meeting up a restaurant and your friend’s asks for the address. Tap the Google search and look up the restaurant to find the address. Share the result and it will appear in the text message that you send to your friend.
The Google search will let you search anything and will provide multiple results. Use it to look up song lyrics, movie names, the local weather, and more without having to go to the Google website. When you find what you want and tap on it, the keyboard will open the webpage.
Improve Your Grammar
This is the second best thing about Gboard. It helps you type full sentences easier than any other keyboard. It isn’t easy to type on a small screen and special characters or punctuation are annoying to use. That is why the world uses so much textspeak now. Thanks to Gboard, you can go back to typing like a professional and stop using textspeak.
- Go back to a mistake you typed by swiping over the spacebar and backspace button. Press and glide back and forth over the spacebar to quickly move to your mistake. Do the same with the backspace button to delete quickly. Just let go when you have finished deleting.
- Reach punctuation marks quickly with the period key. Press and hold the period button right next to the spacebar. A pop up will appear with all your punctuation choices. Glide to the one you want and let go to use it.
- Capitalize words with just a tap. Highlight the word you want to capitalize by pressing on it for a moment. Then tap the shift key. One tap will capitalize the first letter and two taps will capitalize the whole word. One more tap will take it back to its original state.
- Tap the spacebar twice to enter a period. This is nice because the period key is right next to the spacebar and sometimes you might accidentally hit the space instead. But that’s OK because you will still get a period.
Improve Your Autocorrect and Suggestions
While autocorrect fails are hilarious, they can also be embarrassing if sent to a boss and annoying if they happen too often. Gboard knows this and has developed ways to make your autocorrect and suggestions better.
- Remove unwanted word suggestions. Sometimes you get suggestions that never work and you’ll never use. If you get them out of the way, better suggestions will appear. Simply remove a suggestion by holding the word and then dragging it to the trash can that appears on the screen.
- Add words to a dictionary. You can tell Gboard your most used words so that they are brought up in suggestions and used in autocorrect automatically. This makes typing so much faster. What you do is add shortcuts for common words or phrases you use a lot. When you type in that shortcut, Gboard will turn it into the word or phrase you chose.
- Add dictionaries from other languages to include them in your suggestions and autocorrect. If you type in multiple languages you can jump back and forth between them with ease.
- Sync your dictionaries and learned words across all your devices using Gboard. You will have to sign in to your Google account for this as it saves the dictionaries and learned words with Google. No matter what device you use, all your saved words will be there so you don’t have to re-teach Gboard.
One Handed Mode and Gesture Typing
Everyone does it at some point. They try to type on a phone with one hand. Hopefully, you don’t type with one hand while driving, but maybe if you are eating or writing. Gboard makes typing with one hand easier with two options:
- One Handed Mode: This mode shrinks down the keyboard and pushes it to one side of the screen. If you are left handed you can place it on the left side. If you are right handed, place it on the right side. All keys are within easy reach with just your thumb. You can get to one handed mode by pressing the G search key and tapping on the middle symbol that pops up.
- Gesture Typing: Gesture typing is when you swipe over the keys to spell a word. Tap and hold on the first letter of the word you want to spell and then swipe toward the next letter and then the next. You will move over many letters, but Gboard recognizes the one that you last stop on before moving toward another and then predicts what word you want. You will see the suggested word and if it is correct (and it will be) just let go to insert the word. It seems like magic that Gboard manages to guess what word you are typing despite moving over so many wrong letters, but it works. Glide typing is automatically enabled when you install Gboard but can it be toggled on and off in settings.
These Google Keyboard, Gboard, tips and tricks will help you get the most out of the Google company third party keyboard. With these tips your typing will be smoother, quicker, and grammar mistake free.
