HOW TO Use alternative keyboards

1 Use it as a trackpad

On both iPhone and iPad, pressing and holding the Space bar makes the keyboard labels disappear and turns the keyboard area into a trackpad. Swipe around to move the cursor to the place you want it, then remove your finger.

2 Add accents instantly

You can expand the keyboard in several ways. Pressing and holding a key brings up accents for different languages, and on iPad you can swipe from the top of a key downwards to enter the character above the letter it displays.

3 Make it float

Pressing and holding the Keyboard key on iPad turns the standard keyboard into a floating, swipeable one; drag it to the bottom to reverse it back. On iPhone, Settings > General > Keyboard enables a one-handed keyboard for faster typing.

4 Swipe your words

Swipe rather than tap to the next letters of a word and your iPhone will work out what you’re trying to spell. We’re swiping the word iPhone here; the grey tick you can faintly see is us moving from h to o.

5 Get gesturing

On iPad, Settings > General > Gestures, enables you to add gesture shortcuts for swipes rather than taps. Move between apps with four or five fingers, and customise corner swipes to take screenshots or add a Quick Note.

6 Use alternative keyboards

Enable multiple keyboards for different languages, and third-party apps, in Settings > General > Keyboards. You can then activate and choose a keyboard by long-pressing the key with a globe on it.

7 Set shortcuts

One of our favourite keyboard features is text replacement, which is more than just autocorrect: you can paste in phrases or strings of emoji, like we’ve done here, and trigger them when you type a particular bit of text.

8 Add third-party apps

Some third-party apps add more features to your keyboard. This iPhoneonly app, GIF Keyboard, enables you to add a GIF image search to your Messages and other chat apps. Search for the image you want, then tap Send.

9 Get a little help

Some apps, such as Grammarly, work on iPhone and iPad and help you by suggesting improvements to your writing as you type – although this particular app requires a subscription if you want to unlock all of its helpful features.