Swype for Advanced Users
A tweet from Swype led me to the page for Swype Tips and Tricks. I watched most of the videos, but in general found that the tricks were simple enough that they could be easily digested in the form of text, so here they are:
- Double letter: swype in a small circle and back onto that letter
- Capitalize letter midsentence: after swyping over the letter to be capitalized, swype into the space above the keyboard, then back down to the word’s next letter on the keyboard
- Capitalize entire word: same as above, but swype a loop in the space above the keyboard
- Punctuation: swype from any punctuation key (even if it’s an alternate character on the keyboard), and onto the spacebar. That punctuation and a space are inserted.
- Apostrophes: as you’re entering a word, swype over the apostrophe button in the appropriate location
- Correction: double tap a word to bring up a correction menu
- Add to dictionary: type a word in manually, and press the spacebar (only works for words, there is another process for complex entities like an e-mail address)
- Hopping: for words that have an ambiguous swype pattern (e.g. pit vs. pot vs. put), “hop” between letters by moving out and above them and into the next letter from above
- Symbols: press and hold on a letter to add its alternate content
- Speed: swype can guess many words even if not every letter in them is “hit”. Try typing entire messages without any corrections as a “first pass”, then proofread the message and make corrections.