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Some of these you may know already, or have been using intuitively on your iPhone. Either way, I thought it'd be nice to have a more or less comprehensive list of what you can actually do on your iPhone's keyboard.

Keyboard Trick #1: Quickly end the sentence with a period and space.

When you finish typing a sentence and you're looking to for the period and then the space bar, stop looking. Simply double-tap space and the iPhone will type them for you. On the off-chance this isn't working, just go into Settings > General > Keyboard and make sure the "." shortcut is turned on.

Keyboard Trick #2: Type punctuation on the fly

How about when you don't need to end the sentence with a period, but rather a question mark or exclamation mark? You have to switch to the number and symbols keyboard by tapping ".?123" and tap the desired punctuation and then switch back to letters. Of course, there's a shorter way.

To type punctuation, instead of tapping the ".?123" key, simply hold it, and that will bring up the numbers and symbols keys. Without releasing it, slide to what you want to insert and let go of the tap. That will insert what you needed and you're back in the QWERTY keyboard instantly.

This is especially nice because it works with numbers as well as symbols, and if you want to get to the additional symbols keyboard, the "#+=", you'd need an additional tap to switch to the numbers keyboard.

Keyboard Trick #3: Alternate Characters

This method of holding and sliding works well when you want to insert alternate characters in your text. Hold down a letter on the keyboard and see what happens. This also works when you're in the symbols keyboard and need different currencies inserted. Hold down the "$" sign and it will pop-up a selection of additional currencies like the Euro, Japanese Yen or the British Pound.

Apparently, different applications show different keyboards though. In Notes, the currencies each had its own key, but in when writing an SMS, you'd have to tap the "$" sign to get the additional ones.

Keyboard Trick #4: Zoom Into Your Message

If you spot a typo in your text, getting to exactly that spot is really easy with the iPhone's magnifying lens. Simply tap and hold on the text, and when the lens pops-up, slide to exactly where you'd like to modify the typo. As the doctors would put it, it's done with surgical precision.

Keyboard Trick #5: Get Additional Domains From Your Keyboard

You might have notices in Safari that the keyboard accommodates a nifty little shortcut when you want to get to a ".com" domain. But what if you really need ".net"? That's easy too. Tap and hold ".com" and you get a rather nice selection of domains like “.org”, “.net” or “.edu". Slide to what you want and release the hold.

Keyboard Trick #6: Quick Caps Lock Mode

This shortcut is probably disabled on your iPhone, by default. First off, go to Settings > General > Keyboard and flick the Enable Caps Lock switch to ON. From now on, whenever you're typing something, double-tapping the Shift key will enable Caps Lock to write in ALL CAPS.

As you already know, one tap on Caps Lock will enable All Caps but for just the very next key you'll type out. After that, it goes back to the normal mode. With this shortcut, you can type ALL CAPS without having to type the Shift key for every letter you need in caps.

Keyboard Trick #7: How To Use The Keyboard Dictionary

The iPhone is known for constantly learning new words, i.e. the words you're using constantly will be added to the dictionary, if it's not there already. This helps you out by suggesting words when you begin typing them on your keyboard. To accept that word, you need only type a space or a punctuation mark. It's sometimes that easy.

Sometimes though, you don't want to accept the suggested word. For this you need to type the suggested word, or anywhere on the screen for that matter, or continue typing your own word and tap on it at the end. After the first couple of such attempts, the iPhone will learn and it will add your own word to the dictionary.

But what if you want to start off from scratch? Erase all the words you've added to the dictionary? There's a way to do that as well. Go to Settings > General > Reset and in there hit Reset Keyboard Dictionary. That will give you a fresh new factory-installed dictionary.

Keyboard Trick #8: Type In Your Own Native Language

Although I wouldn't qualify this as a trick, I've met several people who were not aware of this function on their iPhones. So I thought I'd list it here for reference.

To type in your own language, first enable multi-language support in Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboards and toggle to ON the languages you want to use. Next up, when writing a text, notice the little Earth icon next to your space bar. Hitting that will switch between the languages you selected in the Settings menu. If you hold your finger on the icon, the nice little pop-up of installed languages will show up and you can select the one you'd like to use. Release when ready.

If this tip was helpful to you - Please let people know - only takes a click below.

 
  

What did we miss?

Perhaps you'd like to add your own to the list. So tell me, what's your favorite and what have I missed from the list? Add your comment bellow!

iPhone Review Posted in Tips & Tricks

8 Bites to “8 Awesome iPhone Keyboard Tricks You Should Know”

  1. Guest says:

    Great tips really. I am

  2. lil says:

    when the one word is selected tap and drag the little blue circle at either end to increase what is highlighted

  3. Nazir Lugenga says:

    A lot of tips I didn't know of. However, how do you mark a block or sentence? I only get to mark one word r page. Can i ne selective, say two or three eords selected?

  4. Assyrian Pride says:

    i never knew abouT #2. and im running iOS 5.1.1

  5. No-Need-for-Dot-Com-on-iPhone

    When typing out web addresses in the browsers address bar, there no need to type out .com. Simply type iPhoneOverload and go. Note that this only works for “.com” websites, not .net, .org, .gov, etc.

  6. Bogdan says:

    That's ok if it switches. Don't let go of the screen (ie. keep touching it) and slide over to the key you want to press (the dot for example). When you reach that key, simply let go. The dot is inserted and you're still seeing the letters.

    The tip is not meant to open up the punctuation keys, but rather save the time of touching “123″ then the dot then 123 again to get back to the letters.

    Hope this helps!

  7. Stacy says:

    #2 – holding down the 123, I have tried a million times, and as soon as I touch it, it switches over to the punctuation, even if I don't let go. Am I missing something?

  8. this is terrific…i didn't know about the 123 key or the shake to delete, thanks!

Leave a Reply to Stacy