Modifying Keyboard Settings
If you use your iPad for email or word processing, you will use the on-screen keyboard often. The keyboard does several things to make it easier for you to type, but some of these might get in the way of your typing style. Use the following steps to modify the keyboard settings to your preferences.
Open the Settings app and tap General.
Scroll through the General Settings list and tap Keyboard.
Tap Keyboards to choose a different keyboard layout. In addition to keyboards commonly used in other countries, you can switch to a Dvorak keyboard or one of several other alternatives to the traditional QWERTY keyboard. You can also select a keyboard installed by a third-party app.
Tap to add your own text shortcuts. For instance, you can set it so “omw” is instantly expanded to “On my way!” Add your own replacements for things you commonly type.
Turn Auto-Capitalization on to automatically make the first character of a name or a sentence a capital letter.
Turn Auto-Correction on to have mistyped words automatically corrected.
Turn Check Spelling on to have incorrectly spelled words underlined in red.
Turn Enable Caps Lock on. When Caps Lock is turned on, you can double-tap the Shift key to lock it.
Disable the shortcut bar by switching the button to off. (Read more about the shortcut bar in Chapter 1, “Getting Started.”)
Turn on or off Predictive Text. See “Using Predictive Text” in Chapter 1 for more about this time-saving feature.
Smart Punctuation automatically replaces straight quotes and apostrophes with curly ones that point in the right direction. This is good for writers, but could be problematic for programmers.
Switch this button to off if you want to lock the keyboard so it can never be split and moved up vertically. See “Using the On-Screen Keyboard” in Chapter 1 for more details on using a split keyboard.
Switch this button to On to enable Key Flicks, which allow you to tap and drag downward on keys to access other characters, such as numbers and punctuation.
Turn on the “.” shortcut if you want a double-tap of the spacebar to insert a period followed by a space.
Tap the key to the left of the spacebar to change keyboards. Note that this key sometimes looks like a globe, sometimes an emoji smile, and sometimes other things. It depends on which keyboard is currently showing. Tap it to move to the next keyboard in your list, or tap and hold to get a list of keyboards so you can select one. You can go directly to the Keyboard settings portion of the Settings app.