Inputting Text

Stop the soft keyboard from popping up

Submitted Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Touch screen devices have a built-in soft keyboard that will pop up automatically every time there is an opportunity to enter text. This is a convenient feature on devices that do not have hardware keyboards, but it can quickly become annoying if you have a built-in QWERTY keyboard and prefer to use it for text entry.

If you want the soft keyboard to stop popping up, go to an application or screen that accepts text. When the soft keyboard pops up, ignore it and use your device’s hardware keyboard to enter text.

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Use shorthand in Transcriber

Submitted Monday, September 29, 2008

If you use the Transcriber option for entering text into your touch screen device, you can make the process easier by using the Shorthand feature so that any shorthand text that you write on the screen (e.g. “app”) will appear as the full (longhand) word typed out (“application”). Here’s how you do it:

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Select an ink color in Transcriber

Submitted Monday, December 3, 2007

Transcriber is found on all Windows Mobile touch screen devices. When activated, it allows you to use your stylus to write on the screen in print, cursive, or mixed styles, and have the writing translated into text. By default, your handwriting appears as blue “ink” on the screen. After it is translated into text, the ink disappears from the screen. You can change the ink color from the default Blue setting to a different color by following these steps:

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T9 keypads: Entering punctuation, symbols, and numbers quickly

Submitted Thursday, December 27, 2007

Cell phone users are familiar with T9 numeric keypads, which assign 3 or 4 letters to each key and allow you to enter letters by holding down a number key until the letter appears. You can also use a T9 keypad to enter punctuation marks, symbols, and numbers. Here’s how you do it:

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Stop the soft input panel from automatically popping up

Submitted Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Werner Ruotsalainen reviews three different "null-SIPs," third-party programs that automatically hide the built-in software input panel when they are activated. Click here for the article.

Keyboard-related enhancements

Submitted Monday, July 23, 2007

Windows Mobile 6 has been improved to make better use of the built-in 30-key QWERTY keyboards or 12-key keypads found on most of these devices. For example, common Messaging functions have been mapped to number keys. To display a list of the keyboard or keypad shortcuts, press “0” in Messaging.

Press “0” in Messaging to display a list of keyboard or keypad shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts using CTRL on the built-in soft keyboard

Submitted Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Many of the standard keyboard shortcuts found on the desktop PC work with the soft keyboard built into touch screen devices (Pocket PCs, Smartphone Professionals). To use them, display the built-in soft keyboard (or a similar third-party alternative), tap on the CTRL key, and tap again on the appropriate letter. The shortcut keys listed below can be used as an alternative to menu commands in most programs.

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Make text entry easier: Get an external keyboard or a device with a QWERTY keyboard

Submitted Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The soft keyboard and other input panels found on touch screen devices can be a pain to work with, and it can take an inordinate amount of time to enter text. Additionally, the “T9” text entry method built into some non-touchscreen smartphones requires multiple presses of numbers to enter text. Fortunately, most of the newer phone-enabled devices come with QWERTY thumb keyboards, which make it easier to enter text.

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Use soft keyboards and Today screen plug-ins to be more effective

Submitted Wednesday, December 13, 2006

You can be more effective and make your device more useful to you by installing one of these soft keyboards and Today screen plug-ins.

TenGo places the entire alphabet on six large keys.

Soft keyboards

A number of third-party soft k

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External keyboard makes text entry easier

Submitted Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Many of the older touch screen Pocket PCs are pen-entry devices without physical keyboards. However, the majority of Windows Mobile touch screen devices released today have integrated phones and QWERTY thumb keyboards for text entry. Unfortunately, these keyboards are small and not well suited for extended text entry. The easiest way to enter Contacts, Calendar appointments, text, etc., is to do it on your PC and sync it with your Windows Mobile device.

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Control your device with your PC's keyboard and mouse

Submitted Friday, December 8, 2006

You can use third-party programs like Remote Keyboard (trancreative.com) and Pocket Controller-Professional (soti.net) to control your Windows Mobile device using your desktop PC’s keyboard and mouse. This makes it easier to enter text, take screen shots, and more.

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