A Sanity Saving Typing Trick for Gboard on Android

A Sanity Saving Typing Trick for Gboard on Android
            Me amo desde el Gboard.  El teclado virtual de Google es rápido, preciso y está repleto de funciones realmente útiles para escribir y deslizar sin problemas desde prácticamente cualquier teléfono Android.
But let’s face it: everyone’s typing needs are a little different. Some of us use tildes with abandon, while others reach for that damn buried percentage symbol almost embarrassingly often. And don’t even get me started on my beloved Gboard and how hard it is to type while pressing your appendages on your mobile device. (You know the symbol I’m referring to, right?) Give it a try—there’s no way Gboard can be everything to everyone. The keyboard is naturally designed to put the most common characters front and center, but for us freaks who feel the frequent need to insert brackets into our on-the-go reflexes (a habit that, as I like, is “pretentious but pleasurable”), the symbols we need are often several steps away and just too hard to find. Well, my weird character-loving comrade, let me tell you, it doesn’t have to be that hard. You’d never know it, but Gboard has a super-smart system for making any character — or word or phrase, even — available on demand, at any time. Once you’ve got it set up to handle the stuff you need, you’ll never have to hunt around or waste an extra second searching or pecking at whatever you need. In fact, Gboard has two spectacular systems for catering to your custom text needs, and whatever kind of weird stuff you like to type on your Android device (an equal sign? The cent symbol? The trademark L exponent?!), you can keep your favorite expressions close at hand and easy to summon at all times. So grab your metaphorical assistant wand, install Gboard — if you haven’t already — and let’s give your phone a highly personalized Android typing upgrade.

Tip No. Gboard Text Summon # 1 - Replacement Magic

Our first tip is perfect for all of those unusual punctuation needs we just mentioned, as well as any unusually spelled names you find yourself typing on the regular (here’s looking at you, Aunt Beverlee). It can also be useful for pulling up something like a phone number, address, or something along those lines that you end up typing a fair amount of from your phone. It’s based on Gboard’s personal dictionary system, but the way we’re going to use it isn’t exactly conventional. Instead of just making text corrections, we’re going to repurpose the system to set up your own custom set of specialized macros for your Android typing adventures. And it’s easy to do:
  • Take out the Gboard keyboard by tapping any text field anywhere on your phone (a blank email, a note, a document, a search box, whatever).
  • Tap the three-dot icon to the right of the top row of the keyboard. If you don't see this icon, tap the arrow to the left of that top row to reveal it.
  • Tap the “Settings” option from the list of options that appears.
  • Tap "Dictionary" followed by "Personal Dictionary" and "All Languages."
  • Touch the plus icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
  • Now for the fun part: think of the text you want to be more accessible, be it a symbol like % or then ; an unusual punctuation, such as a dash, tilde, or hook; or a certain word or phrase that you type too often. Whatever your foolish heart desires, enter it in the top field on the screen that appears. Then tap your finger in the field below and type a shortcut you'll remember to drag your item up—perhaps the letters tm for the trademark symbol, for example, or two hyphens (-) for that lustful emulsion of mine. As long as it's short, easy to write and easy to remember, it'll do the job. Configurar la sustitución de texto para Gboard AndroidJR (If you're doing this with a character that's not available on Gboard, by the way — like the em dash!), find it on a webpage, in an email, or in a document, and then copy and paste it into that top field.) Got it? Good. Now exit this menu and grab Gboard from anywhere on your phone. Type in the shortcut you created, and good grief, Google, would you like to see what happens? Demostración de sustitución de texto de Android de GboardJR In the center of Gboard’s suggestion strip is the text you’ve saved for a single invocation! From now on, whenever you want to type that, all you have to do is tap your shortcut and then tap the suggestion in that center area. You can even make your shortcuts single characters for maximum efficiency. pag for the percent symbol, vs for a check mark, a single dash (-) for an em dash, the pound sign (#) for your phone number, and so on, and if you don't look up your shortcut when typing that character, it will simply ignore the suggestion from the summoned center and continue typing. As soon as you type another letter, the specialized suggestion will disappear and your normal suggestions will return to their place. Demostración de sustitución de texto de Android de GboardJR He's gained a lot of typing intelligence, no harm done. Gotta love him.

    Gboard text invocation tip n. 2: clipboard art

    The second trick in our Gboard portfolio allows you to view saved pieces of information in a more visual menu and then click on the item you want to insert. It's a little slower than the simple substitution method, as you have to stop what you're doing and then open your saved phrase options menu, but for longer, more complicated phrases, you'll find yourself typing often a super-smart time-saver. The secret here lies in Gboard's easily overlooked clipboard feature. To get started, you need to make sure your Gboard clipboard is enabled:
  • Once again, open Gboard by tapping on any empty text field anywhere on your phone.
  • Look for a clipboard icon in the top row of Gboard. If you see the clipboard icon, pat yourself on the back, grab a soda (preferably peach-flavored), and skip the next step.
  • Clipboard icon not showing? Tap the three-dot menu icon in the same top row, find "Clipboard" in the set of options that appear, then tap and drag it to a more visible location in that top row.
  • Tap the clipboard icon and then tap the switch to activate the Gboard clipboard, if it is not already active.
  • Activar el portapapeles de Android GboardJR All you have to do is add the information you want to keep available on demand. In that same menu, you can tap the pencil icon in the top right corner of the keyboard, then tap the plus icon that appears after that, then simply type whatever you find yourself typing frequently (a common type response to incoming emails, a common status update you send in Slack, a standard lunch request, etc.): Guardar el portapapeles de Android GboardJR And that’s it: once you hit the “Save” command, your item will be automatically pinned to Gboard’s clipboard. And you can then open it at any time by simply tapping the same clipboard icon in the top row of the keyboard, and then tapping your item to insert it into the text field you’re typing at the moment – ​​the file. Demostración de sustitución de texto de Android de GboardJR You can also add items to this pinned section by copying text from anywhere on your phone (a web page, document, email, or anywhere), then open the Gboard clipboard section, find the copied text there, and long press on it to reveal the “Pin” option. Demostración de sustitución de texto de Android de GboardJR Not bad, huh? Just keep this newfound knowledge front and center in your head, and you’ll be typing out all sorts of captivating text without the usual effort. For even faster Gboard sorcery, check out this 12-part guide, and be sure to subscribe to my Android Intelligence newsletter to get all sorts of awesome Google knowledge delivered straight from me to your inbox every Friday. Boletín de AI
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