Use onscreen keyboard

Open, close, rotate keyboard

To open the keyboard, just touch an area where you can enter text or numbers.

To close the keyboard so you can see other parts of the screen, tap .

For a larger keyboard, turn your phone horizontally. (If your screen doesn’t rotate, check your auto-rotate setting.) You can also resize the keyboard to give yourself extra space for more accurate typing.

TipIf you installed multiple keyboards, you'll see next to the navigation buttons when you're typing. To switch to a different keyboard, touch .

Type special characters

Touch & hold a key to see related special characters. For example:

  • Touch & hold . to see other punctuation marks.
  • Touch & hold e to see ê, é, è, and ë.
TipTo insert a period followed by a space, tap the spacebar twice quickly.

Capitalize letters

To type in ALL CAPS, touch twice, quickly, so you see . Touch it once more to turn ALL CAPS off.

To change capitalization of a word you've already typed:

  1. Select the word.
  2. Touch until you see the capitalization you want: first letter only, ALL CAPS, or lowercase.

Use glide typing

You have two options for entering text: type one letter at a time (multi-touch typing) or slide your finger through all the letters in a word using one continuous motion (glide typing). Start typing either way and switch whenever you like.

When you're using glide typing, you can:

  • Type a word. Drag your finger over the letters in the word.
  • Enter apostrophes in common words. Drag through the letters and the apostrophe is automatically inserted.
  • Add a space. There's no need to use the space bar. Just lift your finger and start the next word.

You can disable glide typing.

Get suggestions

Use suggestions to type faster.

When you're typing, you'll see a list of suggested next words above the keys:

  • Touch a word in the list to insert it in your text.
  • If you don’t like a suggested word, touch & hold it, then drag it to delete icon.

You can limit or turn suggestions off.

Spell check and auto correct

Misspelled words are automatically corrected as you type.

To prevent that word from being auto-corrected again, add it to your dictionary by touching the word in the list of suggestions above the keys.

If auto-correction is turned off, you can still check spelling:

  1. After you're done typing, review your text; misspelled words (and words not in your dictionary) are underlined.

  2. Touch an underlined word:

    • If the word is spelled correctly, touch it in the suggestion bar.
    • If the word is misspelled, select the correct word in the suggestion bar or type the correction.

Type in multiple languages

If you have added multiple languages as a system language in your phone settings, keyboards and text suggestion are available for those languages:

  • When using a keyboard language other than your primary system language, available keyboard languages are shown on the spacebar.
  • To toggle between languages, touch .
  • To see a list of available keyboards, touch & hold or the spacebar.

You can add keyboards for other languages.

Handwrite your text

In any app where you would type, you can handwrite with your stylus instead.

Tap a text field where you want to write. Then you can either:

  • Write directly in the text field, with shortcuts to help you in the small space.
  • Switch to a larger writing field at the bottom of the screen.

It’s easy and useful to switch between these modes. For example, write in the larger field and switch back to the text field to delete or edit.

Write in a small text field

You'll see this control bar:

If you don't see the control bar when you tap a text field with the stylus, go to Settings > Stylus > Stylus Writing and turn it on toggle on switch.

Use it to:

Insert a space
Backspace
Start a new paragraph
Switch to the larger writing field
Switch between languages if you have multiple languages
Create an animated message (appears only when you're in a messaging app)
Enter (start a search, submit a form, etc.)

Edit in a text field

  • Draw a wavy line through words to delete them
  • Circle words to select them and see more editing options
  • Draw a vertical line between characters to add or remove a space between them

If you want a larger writing area

  1. Be sure to add the handwriting keyboard for your language.
  2. Tap on the control bar for the keyboard.
  3. On the keyboard, tap .
  4. Start writing in the large area at the bottom of the screen.

To switch back to the text field, just tap it.