We all know that typing can be frustrating at times - dealing with typos, long words, and the inevitable autocorrect fails. This guide is designed for new users to Microsoft SwiftKey or those looking to gain a better understanding of features.
- Customizing Microsoft SwiftKey
- Languages
- Personalizing and backing up your words
- Customizing your keyboard
1 - Customizing Microsoft SwiftKey
Tap on the Microsoft SwiftKey app icon to set up things like your languages/layouts, key click sounds, text correction preferences and more. You can even browse and download themes to beautify your keyboard.
OK - now that you know where to find everything, let’s move on to setting up your languages!
2 - Languages
Your Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard supports over 500 languages on iOS, so, even if you speak more than one, there’s a good chance we support yours! The iOS app also lets you type in up to two languages at once, this means less time spent switching and more time typing to the ones you love.
Downloading/Enabling languages
Open your Microsoft SwiftKey app and tap ‘Languages’. Here you'll see:
- A list of available languages - just tap one to download.
- Downloaded languages will be automatically enabled, and you can enable up to two languages at once.
Check out this article for a more detailed explanation.
Setting language layout
It may be that you wish to type in German, but with a QWERTY keyboard layout, or in English with a QWERTZ layout. So, how to change your language layout?
Once you have downloaded a language pack, simply press ‘Switch layout’ to see a list of available layouts and choose the one you want.
If you’d like to learn more about using Microsoft SwiftKey with more than one language, please see this article.
3 - Personalizing and backing up your words
Turbo charge your Microsoft SwiftKey experience right from the beginning with a MicrosoftSwiftKey Account.
Microsoft SwiftKey Account
The Microsoft SwiftKey Account is a free opt-in service that enhances your Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard by leveraging the power of the cloud. As part of this, you can:
- Instantly tailor your predictions to you by letting Microsoft SwiftKey learn from the way you type.
- Safely store your learned language data and sync it across all your devices (never lose your learned language data again).
All you need to perform this magic is to:
- Create a Microsoft SwiftKey Account (accessed by opening the app from your device and tapping ‘Account’).
- Ensure ‘Backup & Sync’ is enabled.
Privacy and Data Security
It’s important for you to know that we take privacy and data security extremely seriously. The Microsoft SwiftKey Account is an opt-in, secure, encrypted service that gives you full control over your data. Our robust Privacy Policy explains and protects your rights and privacy.
For further information about the Microsoft SwiftKey Account, Personalization and Backup & Sync, please see here.
4 - Customizing your keyboard
Microsoft SwiftKey offers many options when it comes to customizing your typing experience.
Text correction
Your Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard not only corrects your typos, but it also predicts your *next* word (i.e. reads your mind!).
No matter what your typing style, Microsoft SwiftKey allows you to choose whether or not you want autocorrect turned on.
This option can be found in the 'Settings’ panel (accessed by tapping your Microsoft SwiftKey app icon).
Flow
If you would like to type by seamlessly gliding your finger across the keyboard, then Flow is something you’ll want to check out!
Give Flow a spin by turning if on from the ‘Settings’ panel. You can learn more about Flow here.
Key Click Sounds
Whether you love or hate the idea of hearing a sound every time you tap a key, you can enable or disable key clicks under ‘Settings’.
Please note that if keyboard clicks are turned off in Apple settings > Sounds, this will not affect the settings selected in Microsoft SwiftKey. However, muting ‘Ringer and Alerts’ in Apple settings > Sounds, will also mute Microsoft SwiftKey’s key click sounds.
For more detailed information, please see this article.
Haptic Feedback
We've added Haptic Feedback to Microsoft SwiftKey. Small vibrations can be felt when opening the emoji panel, long-pressing the emoji/globe key, and activating the 'emoji bomb'.
Support for Haptic Feedback is limited to iPhone 7 and above. It is enabled by default, so you don't need to do anything.
If you want to learn more move on to our ‘Using the Keyboard’ tutorial.
