35 Tricks To Squeeze The Most of Google’s Gboard Keyboard
With more than 500 million downloads, the Google keyboard, dubbed at the end of last year under the name of Gboard, is the most downloaded keyboard used on Android devices against its main rivals.
Gboard is one of the most complete and easy to use keyboards that we can find in Android, and when you learn all its tricks it will cost you to migrate to another keyboard, since it includes a series of gestures and options that allow you to write very quickly. Below we show you all the tricks to get the most out of Gboard …
Swipe to write
To write you do not need to type in each letter but you can write by sliding your finger, an option that works very well, almost always recognizing the word by sliding over with your letters. This method of writing is very practical when we are moving.
Gesture Cursor
If we have made a mistake when writing a word or we want to add something at the beginning of a sentence we can move the cursor by sliding our finger across the spacebar to the sides.
Delete by gestures
To erase, we can also slide our finger to the left from the backspace (DEL) key. When sliding, the words that are going to be deleted are selected and when they are released they will be deleted from the text.
From uppercase to lowercase and vice versa
Another very practical gesture is to convert from uppercase to lowercase and vice versa our words. If we have written in capital letters by mistake we can pass them to lowercase by selecting the words and touching the Shift key. When we touch the Shift key several times we will see how the words change from Shift> Lower case> First letter in upper case> Upper case …
Rapid shortcut for punctuation
A quick way to access the punctuation marks is by making a long press on the ‘.’ (dot). There will be the exclamations, questions, parentheses and other signs.
Activate uppercase lock
If you want to write a word in capital letters you have two ways to activate the capitalization lock: With a double quick press or a prologanda press on the Shift key. The fastest way is double press.
We can also write in capital letters as in a physical keyboard. While you are writing, you can hold down the Shift key to write in upper case and release to write in lowercase.
Delete suggestions
If you see that Gboard shows you a suggestion that you do not want to see again, you can slide it up to eliminate it.
Point and space
If you are going to write several sentences in a row, you do not need to touch the dot key, if you double-click it it will automatically add a period.
Continue Reading: Gmail Go, the mini version of your email, is already on Google Play
Write with one hand
If you have a big-screen mobile phone and it’s hard for you to write with one hand, you can switch to one-sided mode with a long press on the ‘,’ (comma) key and slide your finger to the icon of a hand. There you will be able to adjust the size of the keyboard and its location so that you can comfortably write from the right or left hand.
Draw to look for an emoji
If you do not want to spend 5 minutes looking for an emoji, you can draw it by touching the pencil icon that appears in the bar of your browser. Another option is to write your name if you know it.
Numeric keyboard
If you are going to write many numbers, it is best to access the numeric keypad. To do this, press the [? 123] key and then the [1234] key.
Translator
If you have to send a message in a language that you do not master, it is best to activate the Gboard translator. To do this, click on the arrow or Google icon that appears in the suggestion bar to show the keyboard tools and touch on the translator’s icon. Now you just have to select the languages and write to see how your message is being translated.
Cursor keys
In that toolbar we also find a cursor keyboard that will allow us to easily select the texts to copy and paste them in the exact position of the text.
Customize the toolbar
This toolbar can be customized by changing the order by touching the three points (…) and dragging the icons that appear in that box to the bar.
Dictation by voice
If writing by hand is not your thing then your thing is dictation by voice. Touching the microphone you can dictate your message to be converted into text.
Access the keyboard settings
To access the keyboard settings, you only have to press and hold the ‘,’ key and when the selected gear icon appears, release. A pop-up window will allow us to access the languages or the full keyboard settings.
Perform searches and share results
With Gboard you do not have to leave the application to perform a search. From your toolbar you can access the Google search to make and share queries.
Show Search button
If you want to quickly access the search engine you can add the Google icon from Settings> Search> Show Search button and other options.
Send animated GIFs
With Gboard it is possible to share animated GIFs from most messaging applications. To do this, access the Emojis selector and tap on the “GIF” option. There you can search on the Internet for that perfect GIF to answer your contacts.
Write in several languages
Gboard allows writing in several languages at the same time, showing the suggestions and automatic corrector in the language that you are writing at that moment. In Settings> Languages you can activate all the languages you want, but the keyboard will only recognize three languages at the same time. If you have selected more than three languages you will have to touch the world key to change the three activated languages.
Change the keyboard theme
If you want to give a personal touch to your keyboard you can access Settings> Theme to change the color, put a landscape or any background image of your gallery. You can also add borders to the keys.
Always show row of numbers
If you want to always see the row of numbers, you will only have to activate the option Row of numbers that you will find in Settings> Preferences.
Change the height of the keyboard
In Settings> Preferences you can also adjust the height of the keyboard between four sizes.
Add the symbols to the keyboard
In Preferences you can also activate the option See emojis in symbols keyboard to see in that keyboard the most recent emojis in the suggestion bar.
Customize the keystroke
If you want to customize the behavior of the keys when pressed, you can go to Settings> Preferences> Keystroke to remove the sound, remove the vibration, the key is not extended when you touch it, see the symbols by holding down each key or adjust the delay for the symbols to appear when making a long press.
Create custom input style
In Settings> Preferences> Custom input styles you can change the AZERTY, QWERTZ, Dvorak, Colemak or PC keyboard of any country.
Configure suggestions and automatic correction
If you do not like the suggestions or the automatic correction of Gboard you can adjust it or deactivate it from Settings> Text correction. There you can deactivate the following options:
- The suggestions
- Suggestion of the next word
- Filter offensive words
- Show emoji suggestions
- Suggest contact names
- Personalized suggestions of words on
- Automatic correction
- Automatic capital letters
- Point and space by double tapping the space bar
Synchronize the words learned
Gboard allows us to synchronize the words that you have learned automatically so that in all the devices it shows us the same suggestions. To do this we just have to go to Settings> Dictionary> Synchronize words learned.
Create your personal dictionary and abbreviations
There in Dictionary we can create our Personal Dictionary by adding words next to the initials as a shortcut.
Write in morse
To write in morse we have to go to Languages> Add keyboard. There we select English (USA) and in the next window we activate the morse code style and click on “Ready”. We can access the Morse Typing Trainer educational game to learn to write through this system of representation of letters and numbers by means of intermittent signals.
Handwriting
If we want to write freehand, either with our finger or with a capacitive stylus, we can activate this style of keyboard from Languages> Add keyboard, select our language and select the option Handwriting.
Download your new stickers
To add stickers to Gboard we have to press on the emoji key, play on the stickers icon and then click on the “+” button. There we will see all the available stickers. To add them we have to mark them as favorites.
Create your own animated GIFs
In the section of GIFs we find the section My GIF to create our own animations. Its tool of GIFs allows us to record several seconds of video, add funny effects and add texts.
Our creations will be stored on the keyboard and can be shared by most messaging applications and social networks. At any time we can delete our own GIF from the keyboard by touching the “X” that appears in each GIF.
Show the application icon
Finally, by default Gboard does not show the icon of your application in the application launcher, we have to add it manually. To do this you just have to go to Settings> Advanced settings> Show the icon of the application.