There is a lot of choice in keyboards on smartphones, of which Google Keyboard is a widely used example. The virtual keyboard, also known as Gboard, can be added via an app and with that you have an extensive keyboard with, among other things, gif suggestions, word predictions and the possibility to support multiple languages. How can you use this smart keyboard even smarter?
Gboard is the default keyboard on Android. Some Android manufacturers prefer their own keyboard. But don't worry, you can choose to install Gboard yourself from the Play Store. However, Gboard is also available for iOS. If you want to download the virtual keyboard for the iPad or iPhone, you can install it from the App Store.
Immediately more punctuation marks
It is sometimes complained that people in chat programs and WhatsApp ignore the punctuation marks too much. That is not necessary at all with Gboard. Do you want more punctuation marks at once? Hold down the dot and you will immediately be presented with a whole arsenal: including percent, at sign and hashtag. There are more tricks in this virtual keyboard, and you only have to rest your finger in one place for too long.
You can delete certain words
The more often you use the keyboard, the better it knows which words you use often. He therefore comes up with increasingly better suggestions of subsequent words. For example, you will probably get a topping suggestion after the word sandwich, because you often say cheese sandwich. But, that artificial intelligence is not everything. Sometimes he comes up with suggestions that make no sense or with words you would never use (or: words you misspelled once). You can then choose to delete the word by tapping and holding the word in the suggestion bar. A trash can will then appear to delete that word.
Find your emoji by drawing
You have to be quick and have the right language setting selected, but you can also search for emoji by drawing them. You use 'handwriting' for this, which you can find under the settings > language > choose language > handwriting. You will then see a box with 'write something here' where you can draw anything with your finger. For example a smiley. If you are fast and you can draw well, you can easily find that one emoji you are looking for. Or you can just write your messages instead of tapping so that you keep training your fingers in writing. The Google Handwriting is very smart, so it will probably recognize what you mean pretty quickly.
Delete a lot of text at once
Maybe you were a little angry when you wrote your answer, or it was no longer current: with a simple swipe you can remove the entire story in your input bar. All you have to do is press your finger on the delete button and swipe to the left. Make sure that 'Swipe input' is turned on in the settings. If you want to delete only part of the sentence, you can also touch the key and move it gently to the left. Release when enough is selected and your words are removed. Regret your deleted words? They are still at the top of the bar for a while, so you can quickly tap on them.
Easily put your cursor in the right place
Usually your cursor is in the most obvious place, namely behind a sentence, ready to continue typing. If you want to have that cursor somewhere else, you will probably tap somewhere in the word a bit clumsily, or tap several times, which is also not the most convenient. You can influence the cursor with your spacebar. You put your finger on the spacebar where you want the cursor and flop, it's there.
There are a lot of tricks to be found in Gboard, but these are a few nice ones that the app has to offer right now. Sometimes something is added or removed, including the handy way in which you could synchronize the keyboard with your Google account, so that on a new phone you immediately had a keyboard that immediately makes the right suggestions. Unfortunately, it is no longer in this oh-so-handy application, but it will undoubtedly come back in a different form soon.
