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iPhone Keyboard Shortcuts: Tips & Tricks for Faster Typing
Do you want to speed up your typing process and become more efficient? Here’s a selection of super-useful iPhone keyboard shortcuts!
What are iPhone Keyboard Shortcuts?
iPhone keyboard shortcuts are pre-set phrases or words that can be typed with just a few keystrokes. These shortcuts can save you time if you happen to find yourself frequently typing out the same phrases.
They’re incredibly easy to remember and, once committed to muscle memory, will start to pay time-based dividends almost immediately.
For instance, my address happens to be rather long and this makes it a monumental pain the ass to type out.
With a simple keyboard shortcut, however, setup inside iOS, I can fill out my full, long-winded address in all its glory with a couple of taps – usually, it’d require me to enter 21 characters.
But it doesn’t stop there, you can literally create keyboard shortcuts for all kinds of words and phrases. Even quotes, if that’s your bag!
Here’s how it’s done…
How to Create Your Own iPhone Keyboard Shortcuts
Creating your own iPhone keyboard shortcuts is easy! Follow these steps:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone
- Tap “General” and then tap “Keyboard”
- Tap “Text Replacement”
- Tap the “+” symbol in the top right corner
- In the “Phrase” field, type the phrase you want to create a shortcut for
- In the “Shortcut” field, type the shortcut you want to use for that phrase
- Tap “Save”
- Now, whenever you type out your shortcut, it will automatically expand into your desired phrase.
Useful iPhone Keyboard Shortcuts
Here are some useful pre-set iPhone keyboard shortcuts that can save you time:
- Double tapping the space bar adds a period followed by a space
- Typing “@@” will automatically insert your email address
- Typing “omw” will automatically expand into “On my way!”
- Typing “brb” will automatically expand into “Be right back!”
Other Tips and Tricks for Faster Typing
In addition to using keyboard shortcuts, there are other ways to speed up your typing process on an iPhone:
- Use swipe-to-type: Instead of tapping each individual letter, try swiping across letters to form words.
- Enable one-handed mode: If you have a larger phone, enable one-handed mode in settings to make it easier to reach all parts of the keyboard with just one hand.
- Customize your keyboard: You can add or remove keys from your keyboard in settings based on what you use most frequently.
Please note, these tips and shortcuts work for all of Apple’s iPhones, new and old.