iPad and iPad Pro For Dummies. Bob LeVitus

       See what letter you’re typing. As you press your finger against a letter or number on the screen, the individual key you press darkens until you lift your finger, as shown in Figure 2-11. That way, you know that you struck the correct letter or number.

       Slide to the correct letter if you tap the wrong one. No need to worry if you touched the wrong key. You can slide your finger to the correct key because the letter isn’t recorded until you release your finger.FIGURE 2-11: The ABCs of virtual typing.

       Tap and hold down to access special accent marks, alternative punctuation, or URL endings. Sending a message to an overseas pal? Keep your finger pressed against a letter, and a row of keys showing variations on the character for foreign alphabets pops up, as shown in Figure 2-12. This row lets you add the appropriate accent mark. Just slide your finger until you’re pressing the key with the relevant accent mark and then lift your finger.FIGURE 2-12: Accenting your letters.Meanwhile, if you press and hold down the .? key in Safari, it offers you the choice of .us, .org, .edu, .com, or .net with additional options if you also use international keyboards.

       Tap the space bar to accept a suggested word, or tap the suggested word to decline the suggestion. Alas, mistakes are common at first. Say that you meant to type a sentence in the Notes app that reads, “I am fixing an important …” But because of the way your fingers struck the virtual keys, you actually entered “I am fixing an importsnt …” Fortunately, Apple knows that the a you meant to press is next to the s that showed up on the keyboard, just as t and y and e and r are side by side. So the software determines that important was indeed the word you had in mind and, as Figure 2-13 reveals, places it front and center among the three predictive text buttons. Note that the suspect word is highlighted. To accept the suggested word, merely tap the space bar. And if for some reason you actually did mean to type importsnt or maybe imports to, tap those choices instead among the predictive buttons that appear.FIGURE 2-13: Fixing an important mistake.If you don’t appreciate these features, you can turn off Auto-Correction and Predictive in Settings. See Chapter 15 for details.

       Putting the @ in an email address: If you’re composing an email message (see Chapter 5), a dedicated @ key pops up on the main Mail keyboard when you’re in the To: field choosing whom to send a message to. That key disappears from the first view when you tap the body of the message to compose your words. You can still get to the @ by tapping the 123 key.

       Switching from letters to numbers: When you’re typing notes or sending email and want to type a number, symbol, or punctuation mark, tap the 123 key to bring up an alternative virtual keyboard. Tap the ABC key to return to the first keyboard. This toggle isn’t hard to get used to, but some may find it irritating. Meanwhile, after tapping the 123 key, the shift key shifts into a #+= key. Tap #+= to summon additional character and symbol keys.

       Adding apostrophes and other punctuation shortcuts: If you press and hold down the exclamation mark/comma key, a pop-up offers the apostrophe. If you press and hold down the question mark/period key, you’ll see the option to type quotation marks.