7 Gboard settings that’ll supercharge your Android typing
These easy-to-apply changes will allow you to fly round your keyboard like a complete typing professional.
Google/JR Raphael, IDG
If there’s one place the place saved seconds can severely add up, it is in your smartphone’s on-screen keyboard.
This would not get almost sufficient consideration amongst common tech-totin’ animals, however Android has an superior benefit over that (cough, cough) different cellular platform with regards to textual content enter. All it takes is 2 minutes of attempting to kind textual content on an iDevice to see simply how a lot of an excellent factor we have goin’ (and to make your self need to gouge your eyes out with the closest overpriced Apple accent).
And you realize what? While we have no scarcity of commendable Android keyboard apps to select from, Google’s personal Gboard keyboard actually is the proper instance of how easy, efficient, and expandable the Android typing expertise could be. Gboard works effectively proper out of the digital field, and when you begin poking round within the mustiest corners of its settings, you may uncover some tucked-away treasures that may inject all kinds of seconds-saving sorcery into your Android enter course of.
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So crack these phalanges and put together for pro-level productiveness: We’re diving in deep to Gboard’s least traveled surfaces to take your Android typing expertise to dizzying new speeds.
Gboard setting No. 1: Swifter image summoning
First and foremost, when you’re something like most dual-thumbed Android telephone homeowners, you in all probability waste tons of time trying to find symbols in your Android machine’s keyboard — the whole lot from asterisks to at-signs and pluses to parentheses.
Well, my fellow fast-fingered feline, there’s a higher means.
Start by heading into Gboard’s settings (by tapping the gear-shaped image within the keyboard’s high row — or, when you do not see that image there, tapping the three-line menu icon in that very same space after which discovering the gear-shaped icon on the display that comes up subsequent). Then:
- Tap “Preferences.”
- Scroll all the way in which all the way down to the underside of the subsequent display and discover the “Long-press for symbols” possibility.
- Tap the toggle subsequent to it to show it on.
Now again out of that menu, and when Gboard comes again into view, search for the small characters within the nook of each letter.
Press and maintain your fingers to any of these letters, and hey — how ’bout that?!
JR
Summoning symbols has by no means been so speedy.
Gboard setting No. 2: An even quicker urgent motion
That symbol-summoning tweak is supreme, however do not transfer on together with your beautiful life simply but — ‘trigger there is a actually efficient solution to make it much more environment friendly.
March your hindquarters again into these Gboard settings, and this time:
- Tap “Preferences.”
- Scroll down all the way in which and search for the road labeled “Key long-press delay.”
- Tap it — then slide that slider all the way down to in regards to the 200ms mark.
That’ll make the time it takes for a long-press to be registered in your keyboard noticeably smaller — which in flip will allow you to faucet into these secondary image shortcuts with out having to carry a key down for almost as lengthy.
Try it out for some time on the 200ms setting and see whatcha assume. I discover that degree to be an ideal stability of velocity and accuracy, with long-presses registering quick sufficient to keep away from interrupting your typing stream but in addition not taking place so simply that you just’re more likely to set off ’em inadvertently.
You may need to lift or decrease the extent somewhat to seek out the just-right spot that tickles your typing fancy, however no matter the place precisely you land, I’d be keen to wager you may find yourself with a significantly better scenario than what the usual Gboard setup provides you by default.
Gboard setting No. 3: The quickest quantity entry
Using these secondary characters is an effective way to get to numbers rapidly. If you end up typing tons of digits in your Android machine and need to make numbers even simpler to entry, although, Gboard’s obtained you lined.
Dig again into these Gboard settings, then:
- Tap “Preferences.”
- Flip the toggle subsequent to “Number row” on the high of the display.
That’ll provide you with a everlasting row of numbers on the high of your more and more personalised Android keyboard — thus making each digit only one faucet away as a substitute of a faucet and a maintain.
JR
And this is a hidden bonus tip associated to that: You’d by no means understand it, as there is not any seen indication, however after getting that quantity row lively, you possibly can press and maintain any of these characters to get a pop-up checklist of associated numerical choices — fractions, superscripts, and even an on-demand holographic illustration of The Count from Sesame Street.*
JR
* Holographic muppet out there solely throughout intense hallucinations.
Gboard setting No. 4: Easier emoji expression
Maybe you are much less of a numbers individual and extra of an emoji creature. Hey, all of us have other ways of expressing ourselves.
If you are continuously injecting smilies, kitten faces, and/or piggy snoots into your Important Business Communications, you may undoubtedly need to pay attention to Gboard’s exceptionally environment friendly emoji-enhancing choices.
So get your self again to these Gboard settings, faucet “Emojis, Stickers, & GIFs,” and pay particular consideration to 3 prospects inside that space:
- First, the “Emoji fast-access row” toggle will add a complete devoted row of not too long ago used emojis onto the highest of your keyboard.
- If you need to take it down a notch from there however nonetheless preserve your favourite smiley symbols shut, attempt the “Emojis in symbols keyboard” change as a substitute.
- Or, for a extra contextual and on-demand method, flip on the “Emojis” possibility beneath “Suggestions whereas typing.” That’ll trigger choose emojis to seem inside the usual Gboard textual content suggestion space, proper alongside your common next-word predictions.
JR
Now, that is I name efficient symbolism.
Gboard setting No. 5: Custom keyboard peak
Prefer a extra plentiful house for plopping down your plus-sized fingies? Whether you have added further rows into your Gboard setup otherwise you’re simply craving a roomier association, take whole management of your Android keyboard interface by making your keyboard the precise proper measurement for you:
- Back within the Gboard settings, faucet “Preferences.”
- This time, discover the road for “Keyboard peak.”
- Tap that dangerous boy and experiment with the totally different out there choices.
JR
- Rejoice (and/or rejuice, as wanted).
Gboard setting No. 6: The one-tap auto-correct undo
Auto-correct is concurrently top-of-the-line trendy tech improvements recognized to mankind and probably the most maddening bits of computerized wizardry to ever enter our lives.
The subsequent time your Android keyboard auto-corrects one thing incorrectly, although, do not scream and throw your telephone on the nearest bovine. Or, I do not know, do — if that bovine was actually asking for it.
But both means, make this snazzy little Gboard settings adjustment, and you will have so much much less frustration:
- In the “Text correction” part of Gboard’s settings, discover the road labeled “Undo auto-correct on backspace.”
- Make positive the toggle subsequent to it’s within the on place.
With that teensy tweak in place, anytime Gboard adjustments one thing you have typed and you are not thrilled with its correction, you possibly can merely hit the Backspace key on the keyboard — the left-facing arrow form with an “x” in it, in Gboard’s lower-right nook.
As lengthy as you do it pretty rapidly after the auto-correct happens, earlier than you hit another keys, that’ll change your phrase again to the way in which you’d initially entered it — faulty or not. And that is a pleasant type of energy to have.
Gboard setting No. 7: The sentence-ending step-saver
Last however not least, let us take a look at considered one of Gboard’s only and likewise easiest step-savers — one thing that for some purpose is not usually enabled by default.
I’m talkin’ in regards to the keyboard’s capability to routinely fill in a interval for you once you hit the spacebar twice on the finish of a sentence. Handy, no?
All you have gotta do is hearth up the related setting one time:
- Back within the Gboard settings “Text correction” part, discover the road for “Autospace after punctuation.” (For some purpose, it is nonetheless thought of a beta characteristic — and it is out there provided that you are utilizing Gboard with U.S. English as its language. So when you do not see it in your setup, that is in all probability why.)
- Turn that toggle into the on place.
And at that time, all that is left is to kind, kind, kind away — while basking within the data that ending a sentence won’t ever take greater than a single double-space.
Now, if solely ending precise conversations could possibly be really easy.
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