There are plenty of Gboard features available that’ll improve your typing speed and productivity. Recently, I reviewed these to bolster mine.
As with most Google products, I’m constantly switching between Gboard and its many alternatives. I spent a good period with the open-source keyboard HeliBoard, which reveled in its simplicity and privacy-forward concept. However, as I’ve recently jumped aboard the Pixel and new Galaxy train, I decided I should probably commit to Google’s keyboard for the foreseeable future.
For the most part, it’s been brilliant using Gboard on modern Google and Samsung handsets, but it still wasn’t as comfy a cushion as I wanted. So, to maximize my Gboard typing game, I’ve reevaluated the app’s practical features, settings, and shortcuts and tweaked these to better suit my typing style and boost my productivity.I tidied up my cluttered Gboard toolbar
My Gboard toolbar, which offers me plenty of ways to command the text I channel through it, was a bit of a mess. The app offers around a dozen shortcut buttons that you can freely rearrange on the toolbar above the keyboard and when tapping the shortcuts button. I ensure these icons are arranged in the order I use them most to boost my typing efficacy. I do this on every device I use.
Your arrangement will likely be very different from mine, but here’s my toolbar layout in order from left to right:
Clipboard
GIF
Settings
Text editing
Translate
Gboard allows up to five icons on the toolbar, so any spillover options can be accessed by tapping the irremovable Shortcuts button. Here I can find other items like Theme, Floating, and Resize, although I don’t require these much, if ever.
Notably, while I’m on the subject of the toolbar itself, I also toggle on the Show recently copied text and images in suggestions bar option in the Clipboard settings tree.I refreshed my Gboard gestures and long-press-fu
Like most Google apps, Gboard is flush with gestures that are just waiting to be exploited. Granted, many of them aren’t as immediately obvious and Gboard doesn’t do a good job of exposing them to users.
Nevertheless, once you’re aware of them and place them within your daily workflow, you won’t be able to live without them. They are incredible for bolstering your typing performance.
Here are a few of my favorite Gboard gestures:
Press and hold, then swipe left and right on the spacebar to move the cursor through your text.
Swipe left on the backspace/delete key to remove entire words.
Activate one-handed mode on the right-hand side by long-pressing the Enter key. For lefties, long-press the comma key.
You can access common punctuation marks by long-pressing the full stop icon.
