One of the most unique features of the iPad is its virtual keyboard, which displays a keyboard on the screen and lets you type directly on the surface of the iPad. While typing on a flat piece of glass might initially feel odd, you'll soon find that you'll adjust and be able to use the virtual keyboard nearly as well (or perhaps even better) than using a physical keyboard that can get clogged with crumbs, dust, and spilled liquids.
To make the virtual keyboard easier to use, you can customize its behavior. After a little practice, you'll soon find yourself capable of typing happily away on the iPad whether you need to write a note to yourself, an email message, or a website address.
In this chapter you'll learn how to customize and use the virtual keyboard on your iPad.
Because of the limited screen size available on the iPad, the virtual keyboard behaves differently than a physical keyboard. A physical keyboard displays every key, including letter and number keys in addition to cursor movement keys and function keys. Although this makes all the keys available, it also tends to clutter the keyboard with groups of keys you might rarely use, such as the function keys or the numeric keys.
The iPad's virtual keyboard works differently by displaying only the groups of keys you're most likely to use. The three main types of virtual keyboards display letters, numbers, and symbols.
For additional comfort, you can Split the keyboard in half so you can type with your thumbs while holding the iPad. You can also Undock the keyboard from the bottom so it floats near the middle of the screen.
To see what these virtual keyboards look like, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Notes. The Notes screen appears.
Tap anywhere on the right side of the screen that looks like a yellow notepad. The virtual keyboard displaying letters appears, as shown in Figure 5-1.
Tap either of the .?123 keys. The virtual keyboard changes to display numbers and additional symbols, as shown in Figure 5-2.
Note
To save yourself a few extra taps when typing a single piece of punctuation, you can just tap and hold the .?123 key and then release it once you've found the right character. Your keyboard will automatically swap back to the ABC keyboard.
Tap either of the #+= keys. The virtual keyboard changes to display symbols, as shown in Figure 5-3.
Tap either of the 123 keys. The numeric virtual keyboard reappears (shown earlier in Figure 5-3).
Tap either of the ABC keys. The main virtual keyboard with letters reappears (shown earlier in Figure 5-1).
Typing on the virtual keyboard is nearly identical to typing on a physical keyboard. The main difference is that the virtual keyboard does not offer any arrow keys. (You have to touch the screen to move the cursor.) In addition, if you type part of a word, the virtual keyboard may display the correct and complete spelling of that word, which you can choose by pressing the spacebar.
To create text, you can type it yourself or let the virtual keyboard suggest and automatically type any words that you've partially typed. To see how typing on the virtual keyboard works, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Notes. The Notes screen appears.
Tap anywhere on the right side of the screen that looks like a yellow notepad. The virtual keyboard displaying letters appears (shown earlier in Figure 5-1).
Start typing Im. Notice that when the virtual keyboard thinks it recognizes what you're typing, it displays I'm as a suggested word, as shown in Figure 5-4.
Tap the spacebar to let the virtual keyboard finish typing the suggested word automatically. (If you don't want to choose the suggested word, keep typing or tap the X in a circle that appears to the right of the suggested word.)
Type more text. Try misspelling a word by typing Testung—the iPad will automatically correct your spelling to Testing. To make your new text appear on another line, tap the Return key.
Tap the Shift key, then try pressing a letter. Notice it's now uppercase. Tap the Shift key again, and press the button labeled !,—you have inserted the ! character.
With a physical keyboard, you can move the cursor by pressing the arrow keys or by pressing any of the other cursor movement keys such as Home or End. With the virtual keyboard, there are no cursor movement keys since you must directly place and move the cursor by touching the iPad's screen.
You can move the cursor in two ways: tapping your fingertip to move the cursor before or after a word or touching and sliding your fingertip to move the cursor within text. Holding your finger on the screen displays a magnifying glass that lets you see the exact position of the cursor so you can slide your finger to move the cursor where you want it to appear.
To see how to move the cursor, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Notes. The Notes screen appears.
Type a few sentences of text.
Tap anywhere in your text. Notice that the cursor appears wherever you tap. (However, the cursor will not appear in blank areas where there is no text.)
Hold your finger on any part of the text that you've typed. A magnifying glass appears, letting you see the current position of the cursor, as shown in Figure 5-5.
Note
If you're having trouble getting the magnifying glass to appear, make sure you do not slide your finger up or down.
Slide your finger to move the cursor. Notice how this method lets you move the cursor accurately.
Lift your finger when you're happy with the current location of the cursor. A Select, Select All menu appears, as shown in Figure 5-6.
Press the Home button.
Just like with a regular computer, you can select text to copy, cut, and paste in another location. When selecting text, you have three choices: select a single word, select all of your text, or select just part of your text.
After you select text, you can delete it by tapping the Backspace key, or you can cut or copy the selected text to paste it somewhere else.
You can select a single word in two ways. First, you can tap a word twice to select it. Second, you can hold your finger on a word for a moment and then release. When a menu appears, tap Select. To try selecting a single word, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Notes. The Notes screen appears.
Type a sentence of text.
Tap a word twice. Your chosen word appears highlighted, as shown in Figure 5-7, along with a Cut, Copy, Suggest, and Define menu.
Tap Cut or Copy to cut or copy your selected text.
Press your fingertip over another word, and lift your finger off the screen. Notice that a Select, Select All, and Paste menu now appears, as shown in Figure 5-8.
Tap Paste to insert your cut or copied text.
Normally the virtual keyboard selects only entire words. However, you may want to select just part of a word, which you can do by following these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Notes. The Notes screen appears.
Type a sentence of text.
Tap any word twice. Your chosen word appears highlighted along with beginning and ending markers; each marker appears as a vertical line with a circle on the top or bottom of the line.
Hold your finger on one of the vertical lines, and slide your finger to select more or less text, as shown in Figure 5-9.
Lift your finger when you've selected all the text you want. At this point you can tap Cut or Copy to cut or copy your selected text.
Note
You can shake your iPad to Undo a Cut, Paste, or even a bit of typing—just be careful not to drop it!
The iPad's virtual keyboard offers a limited form of spellchecking that flags possibly misspelled words with a red underline. You must first tap a possibly misspelled word, and then the virtual keyboard displays a list of possible correct spellings.
To see how to spellcheck text, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Notes. The Notes screen appears.
Type Greeetings. (Make sure you deliberately misspell the word by typing three es.)
Press the spacebar. Notice that the misspelled word appears with a dotted line underneath to identify it as a possible misspelling, as shown in Figure 5-10.
Tap the word. A menu appears, listing possible correct spellings, as shown in Figure 5-11.
Tap the correct spelling, and your iPad replaces your word.
Note
If you tap a word twice to select it, a Cut, Copy, Paste, and Suggest menu appears. If you tap Suggest, you can select from a list of alternative words to replace your currently selected word.
To make the virtual keyboard easier to use, you may want to customize its behavior. Five features you can customize include auto-correction, auto-capitalization, spellchecking, caps lock, and a neat shortcut to insert periods (“.”) automatically.
Auto-correction means the virtual keyboard tries to guess which word you want to type after you've typed only part of that word—the iPad will also attempt to autocorrect misspellings as you type. Auto-capitalization means that the first letter of every sentence automatically gets capitalized. Spellchecking automatically highlights potentially misspelled words. Caps lock lets you tap the Shift key twice to turn on caps lock so you can type capital letters without tapping the Shift key each time. The shortcut for inserting a period automatically is to simply press the spacebar twice. All of these features are on by default—if you find them annoying, just turn them off.
To customize the virtual keyboard, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears.
Tap Keyboard. The Keyboard settings screen appears, as shown in Figure 5-12.
(Optional) Tap the Auto-Capitalization on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the Auto-Correction on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the Check Spelling on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the Enable Caps Lock on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the “.” Shortcut on/off switch.
Press the Home button.
If you regularly need to type characters in foreign languages that display accent characters above or below the letter, or type the symbol for euro (€) or yen (¥) instead of American dollars, the virtual keyboard offers a unique tap-and-hold feature. Just tap your finger on a key and hold it there. After a few seconds, a menu of different characters appears, allowing you to slide your finger over the character you want to type.
To see how to type foreign characters, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Notes. The Notes screen appears.
Tap the Notes screen to make the virtual keyboard appear.
Tap and hold the E key until a menu of different characters appears, as shown in Figure 5-13.
Tap and hold other keys to see the character choices for those letters.
Tap the .?123 key to switch to the numeric keyboard.
Tap and hold the $, -, and ? keys to see the choices for those characters.
To learn more about customizing the iPad for foreign languages, read Chapter 30.
Typing with the virtual keyboard doesn't give you any physical feedback when you've pressed a key. To overcome this problem, auditory feedback causes your iPad to make a slight clicking sound when you've pressed a key. By default, this auditory clicking is turned on, but if it annoys you, you can turn it off.
To turn on (or turn off) these auditory keyboard clicks, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap General. The General settings screen appears.
Tap Sounds. The Sounds settings screen appears, as shown in Figure 5-14.
Tap the Keyboard Clicks on/off switch.
Press the Home button.
Normally the virtual keyboard appears at the bottom of the screen. However, if you're holding the iPad with both hands, you might find it more convenient to move the keyboard up toward the middle of the screen. For additional comfort, you can also split the keyboard so you can type by using just your thumbs.
To see how to dock and split the virtual keyboard, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Notes. The Notes screen appears.
Tap anywhere on the right side of the screen that looks like a yellow notepad. The virtual keyboard appears.
Tap and hold the Hide Keyboard key until a menu appears, as shown in Figure 5-15.
Tap Undock. The virtual keyboard now appears in the middle of the screen, as shown in Figure 5-16.
Tap and hold the Hide Keyboard key until a menu appears.
Tap Split. The virtual keyboard splits in half, as shown in Figure 5-17.
Tap and hold the Hide Keyboard key until a menu appears.
Tap Dock and Merge. The keyboard appears back at the bottom of the screen.
Press the Home button.
Note
Like switching between the two keyboard modes? You can split the keyboard quickly by literally pulling it apart with a two-thumb drag. When you want it to merge, just push the keyboard back together with both thumbs.
Getting familiar with the virtual keyboard may take time, especially if you're used to using physical keyboards. If you're a hunt-and-peck typist, you may find the iPad's keyboard perfectly suited to your typing style.
The key to using the virtual keyboard is to practice in order to get over your initial unfamiliarity. To make typing more comfortable and natural, consider buying an optional case, which can prop the iPad up at an angle.
If you prefer a physical keyboard even after practicing with the virtual one, you can wirelessly connect any Bluetooth-enabled keyboard to your iPad. If you buy the optional camera connection kit, you can plug an adapter into your iPad that provides a USB port. Then you can plug an ordinary USB keyboard into this port and type on this keyboard.