If you have considered the possibility of acquiring an external keyboard for your iPad , or you already have one, you should know that there are a series of tremendously useful keyboard shortcuts , but that we can also easily use it through the typical touch keyboard that appears on the device screen.
What’s more, it is perfectly possible to create a series of useful keyboard shortcuts that we can use to type faster and much more efficiently, or to generate a series of custom shortcuts to greatly facilitate their use.
Using keyboard shortcuts on the touch keyboard of our iPad screen
The iPad , like any other digital tablet, has a touch screen that includes an equally tactile keyboard for entering letters and words, which greatly facilitates the use of the device.
In this way, although we do not use an external keyboard, the touch keyboard incorporated in the iPad operating system also has its own shortcuts . Take note.
Quickly select an alternative key
It is very likely that you already know that by touching the symbols “# + =” or “123” it is possible to change the normal keyboard to the numeric keyboard. When we have selected it, it will remain on the screen until we switch back to the traditional keyboard, something that we will have to do manually.
However, sometimes we may just need to add a single number or symbol. How to do it quickly? It is as simple as touching and holding the keyboard change key, sliding your finger up until you reach the key you need, to release it immediately. In this way, we will not change the keyboard, but the desired number or symbol will have been entered.
Change to uppercase
If you find yourself filling out a certain contact form, and need to type in capital letters, you can quickly put the keyboard into uppercase mode simply by double tapping the Shift key.
From that moment, all the letters that we write will appear in capital letters. To deactivate it, just press the Shift key again, or touch the “123” key.
Changing the keyboard style
By default, every time we use the iPad touch keyboard it is common for a large keyboard to appear, which occupies the entire lower width of the screen. However, did you know that you can use a smaller keyboard, similar to the one found on the iPhone ?
To activate it you only have to “pinch” the screen , just above the keyboard, which will make the large keyboard become a smaller module, located right in the middle of the screen.
Using keyboard shortcuts on the external keyboard connected to the iPad
Most external keyboards designed to be used with the iPad have two essential keys in the Apple universe (both iPadOS and macOS): Cmd (Command) and Option , which are very helpful when using some essential shortcuts.
If you have these keys on your keyboard, here are some extremely useful shortcuts:
- See a list of the most common shortcuts: Cmd
- Selector of most used applications: Cmd + Tab
- Go to the home screen: Cmd + H
- Open or close the search screen: Cmd + space bar
- Show or hide the Dock: Cmd + Option + D
- Take a screenshot and automatically open it for editing: Cmd + Shift + 4
- Take a screenshot: Cmd + Shift + 3
How to create our own keyboard shortcuts
If you want to go a little further, it is not only possible to use the built-in shortcuts. We can also create our own shortcuts, useful, for example, to replace and write text when we write.
To do this, we must open the Settings app, which we will find as always on the home screen of our iPad, and we touch General and then Keyboard . Now, we click on the Text Replacement tab, we touch the “+” icon, located in the upper right corner, and we write the phrase we want to create. Then, we write the text shortcut that we want to use to proceed to activate it
To finish, click Save . From that moment, when we enter the word chosen as a shortcut, it will automatically correct itself with the added text.
