Page 756 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

In general, this keyboard works pretty much like any keyboard you’ve ever

used, with a few exceptions:

The keys don’t move. Of course not—it’s a piece of glass! The

keys do everything they can, though, to tell you when they’ve been
struck. They change color and make little sounds.

It has a symbol/number layout. Two, actually. Tap the “&123”
key to change all the letter keys into symbol keys: !, @, %, $, &,
and so on. Tap the to view a second set of them—less common
symbols like ©, <, >, and other currency symbols and brackets.

And a numeric keypad appears at the right end of the keyboard.

To return to the regular alphabet keyboard, tap the “abc” key.

It’s a shape-shifter. See the little icon at top left? It sprouts a

choice of five icons: tablet keyboard, mini keyboard, split two-
thumb keyboard, normal keyboard, and handwriting panel (see
Figure 12-9).

It’s also a Swype keyboard. On phones, people love the Swype
and SwiftKey keyboards; in these systems, you don’t have to tap

each key to spell out a word. Instead, you rapidly and sloppily drag
your finger across the glass, hitting the letters you want and lifting
your finger at the end of every word. The software figures out
which word you were going for.

Sounds bizarre, but it’s fast and very satisfying. And pretty—your
finger leaves a sort of fire trail as it slides across the glass.

Believe it or not, all the keyboards on your touchscreen Windows
10 machine offer this swipe-to-type keyboard. Try it!

You can remove the margins. Ordinarily, the keyboard stretches

all the way across your screen. But the middle row of the pop-out
panel circled in Figure 12-9 offers a slightly narrower one that
eliminates the side margins. Once those margins are gone, you can

drag the keyboard to wherever you want it on the screen.