This guide to ‘Using the Keyboard’ will take you through the following:
1 - Typing with Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard
How does it work?
Microsoft SwiftKey is designed to improve the ease and accuracy of your typing, no matter how (or what) you type!
If you like to know the technical side of things, here’s a (very) brief description of how Microsoft SwiftKey helps you out:
- The keyboard uses advanced error correction, meaning grammar and spelling errors are a thing of the past.
- Microsoft SwiftKey predicts your >next word<. Next words are predicted with such accuracy that 33% of suggestions are right the first time and usually (84% of the time) you won’t need to press more than two letters.
- This is done by analyzing the context of a user’s sentence and input behavior, which is accomplished through our prediction engine, which employs statistical language models generated by analyzing billions of words of background text.
- Microsoft SwiftKey doesn’t just predict regular words – it learns as you type and remembers how you write. As you choose words and sentences over time, our prediction engine creates a dynamic contextual understanding of your writing style to boost the accuracy and speed of the predictions.
So, what does this mean for you and your typing?
- Bashing the keyboard and expect some sort of sensical output.
- Tapping the middle prediction (or tap space) will often result in unique prose.
- Microsoft SwiftKey always knows the perfect response and will practically type it for you.
Keyboard Navigation
We don’t want you hunting for the percentage key, or wondering where the hashtag went. So here’s a little roundup of where things are located on the keyboard for the QWERTY layout using English US.
First keyboard pane:
Second keyboard pane (accessed by tapping the '123' key):
Third keyboard pane (accessed by tapping the '#+=' key):
The emoji keyboard can be accessed by tapping the emoji (smiley) button from any pane. You can also long press to bring up the keyboard option menu.
Using Flow
Flow essentially allows you to type by gliding your finger across the keyboard. As you glide across the letters, you’ll see predictions appearing on the prediction bar - as soon as you see the word you’re after, just lift your finger and the word will be inserted!
Flow also allows you to glide through space, meaning that you can flow a word, move down to the spacebar, and flow the next word - all without lifting a finger.
Tip: You can switch seamlessly between flowing and tapping - there’s no need to change modes.
Removing/Adding Words
Your Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard is clever by default, but occasionally odd, offensive or just plain weird words slip through the net. Don’t panic - it's easy to remove words you don't want to see.
The next time this word shows up as a prediction, simply long press the prediction and you’ll see a pop up notification asking whether you’d like to remove the prediction. Just press ‘OK’ and the word will be removed from your language model.
This word won’t be predicted again unless you retype the word.
Multiple Languages
We know you’re a clever bunch, and many of you speak two, three or even more languages. Your Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard enables you to effortlessly type in up to two languages at once.
If your selected languages use the same alphabet and you have selected the same layout for all of them (i.e. QWERTY), then all you need to do is... type! It doesn't matter which language you start typing in, your Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard can detect the one you’re using and offer you predictions/corrections accordingly.
Even if you are using languages with different layouts or alphabets, you can switch between them at the mere swipe of a finger. Simply press on the spacebar and then either slide left or right, or choose from the popup to change up your language/layout!
Tip: To access additional accented characters, just long press on a key and slide to select the one you’re after.
2 - Keyboard Themes
We genuinely want to facilitate you in expressing your uniqueness, and so we decided to invest in designing and creating the very best quality themes for your keyboard.
Changing Themes
We have a plethora of beautiful, free themes (including animations like 'Zig Zag' and 'Cogs', plus the colourful and vibrant 'Oxygen') for your keyboard, whatever your style may be!
You can get to the themes by opening Microsoft SwiftKey and tapping ‘Themes’. When you see one you like, simply tap to select. Next time you open your keyboard, your brand new theme will be shining back at you in all its glory.
If you fancy a change just select another from the designs available.
