Daily Tip: How to setup a keyboard shortcut for a username, email address or well used phrase
Wondering how to save time and effort entering common information like your name, email address, or phone number? The good news is iOS 5 has a special feature called “Shortcuts” that lets you define a word or phrase to a key combination. Follow along and we will show you how easy it is to setup and how it can save you a lot of time too:-
- Go to Settings
- Click on General
- Click on Keyboard
- You will now see a predefined shortcut which is triggered by typing omw
- Click on Add New Shortcut
- Type in a username, email address or phrase you use a lot
- Now choose a letter combination to trigger the shortcut
- Hit Save and that's stored for future use
- Add as many as you like
- When you are finished you will see a list of your shortcuts under General>Keyboard
- Now open up an app that you can type into, we will use Notes
- Type in the shortcut for one of your phrases, you will see the whole phrase open up in a bubble below
- Hit the Space Bar and the whole phrase appears
It really is as simple as that, but if you set them up and remember the shortcut this can save you a stack of time.
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UK editor at iMore, mobile technology lover and air conditioning design engineer.
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Damn, I thought I was the only one who did this! Very useful tip.
This works across multiple languages/keyboards and special characters and emoji as well.
Wow. I didn't know this existed. Was this new with iOS 5? You guys rock!
ok awesome but ios has a bunch of words stored in their dictionary i dont like - how do i change that? (for instance when i type "lolz" a bubble pops up (autocorrect) that says "lols") can we edit ios's dictionary? do i make any sense? lolz
You teach ios while you are typing just click the x in the bubble and iOS learns that is how you edit it
This is the best tip I've found yet. This was the only thing Icould find to taught BlackBerry over iPhone (shortcuts)... and now I can't do that anymore... thank you so much for this tip
i find that using @@ for my email works well