Gboard is the default keyboard on many Android phones, and it comes with a lot of features that let you customize the app to your liking. We show you five tips and tricks that can help you type smoothly in different situations.
Floating Keyboard
The keyboard takes up the entire bottom half of your phone, and although you can reduce the size in the settings, such a mini keyboard is not useful in all circumstances. With the floating keyboard, you can resize Gboard for a moment and drag it to the desired position. We explain how to activate it quickly:
- Tap the icon with the three dots at the top of your keyboard
- Choose Floating
- Drag or resize the keyboard from the corners of the floating keyboard. Exit by dragging down.
Activate Symbols
This setting is extremely useful because you no longer have to dive into extra menus of your keyboard for all possible symbols. From now on you can just long-press letters to use the corresponding symbol. Here’s how to add your symbols to your keyboard:
- Tap the Settings icon at the top of the keyboard
- Choose preferences and scroll all the way down
- Turn on Long press for symbols, and go back to the keyboard
- Keep letters pressed to use symbols
One-handed Mode
Smartphones are getting bigger and bigger, and although they can show more content on the screen, they are also less easy to operate with one hand. Fortunately, Gboard has a One-handed mode. Google takes this into account for both right- and left-handers. By default, the smaller version of the keyboard appears on the right side of the screen, but you can also move the smaller keyboard to the other side with the arrow. This is how you activate the function:
- Long press the Enter key until two additional icons appear
- Keep holding and swipe your finger to the left to select the leftmost icon. You do that by letting go
- The One-handed keyboard is now active, and you can adjust its position using the two bottom icons that appear in the interface. You close with the top magnifying icon.
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Quick Gestures
One of the strongest aspects of Gboard is the smart gestures that help you type more smoothly. For example, you can scroll through texts extra quickly by swiping left and right with your finger over the space bar. With another trick, you can quickly remove words. Swipe left quickly on the backspace button and you’ll see large chunks of text disappear in one fell swoop. To be able to use the handy gestures, you must first activate them from the settings. You do that as follows:
- Tap the Settings icon at the top of the keyboard
- Choose typing by swiping
- Turn on all switches
Handwriting Typing
This one is primarily for those who use their phone along with a stylus, but it’s also a nice feature for tablet users. You can type by drawing letters on the screen. We explain how to turn on the handwriting keyboard:
- On the keyboard, hold down the Space key
- Tap Language Settings
- Press Dutch
- Select Handwriting at the top and Done
- Go back to the keyboard and long-press the Spacebar again
- Choose the Handwriting Keyboard and start drawing.