Typing on your iPad and iPhone is way easier with TextExpander for iPhone & iPad to speed you along. It has a custom keyboard that can expand text snippets in any iOS app. Plus, there are also over 75 TextExpander-enhanced apps that can expand your text snippets without switching to our custom keyboard.
Here’s a quick primer on how to use your TextExpander snippets on the iPad and iPhone. If you have a favorite app that doesn’t support TextExpander yet, feel free to reach out to its developer, ask them nicely, and share this link to our resources!
Hey Developers! Check out our simple instructions below on how you can make your users even more productive by adding our TextExpander SDK to your apps!
For us regular folks
Once you have a TextExpander-enhanced app, it’s simple to get expandin’:
- Open the app’s settings and enable the TextExpander option
- Tap the “Refresh TextExpander snippets” button
- Type your snippets like a champ
Seriously, that’s all. Isn’t it great? But just to be safe, we’ll answer a few common questions:
What if I want to use TextExpander in an app that does not (yet) support TextExpander?
Check out our custom iOS keyboard, it’s a great option here. You can quickly switch to it just like the emoji keyboard, and it can expand your snippets virtually anywhere you can type.
Also, feel free to reach out to that app’s developer and ask them (nicely!) to add our TextExpander SDK.
How do I reorder keyboards on my iPad/iPhone to put TextExpander first?
You can do that in the Settings app. Here are some quick instructions and a video.
Can I have a one-tap ‘snippet dashboard’ on iPad and iPhone?
Why yes, yes you can. We call it Snippet Keys, and it’s pretty cool.
Can I use the TextExpander custom keyboard with an external iPad keyboard?
Well, if an iPad or iPhone app has direct support for TextExpander, your can use any software or hardware bluetooth keyboard you want; your snippets will expand just fine.
But if you’re using our custom keyboard in an app that does not (yet) support TextExpander, keystrokes from a hardware keyboard won’t be able to expand your snippets. Our keyboard is software-based, so only strokes placed on it can expand snippets.
Where is the dictation button?
Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything. Custom keyboards in iOS are not allowed to access the microphone. If you want to switch between the Apple and TextExpander keyboards more quickly, you can follow our instructions to reorder your iPad and iPhone keyboards to keep them closer together in the list.
For the developers: Add our SDK
If you’re a developer, you can integrate TextExpander’s snippet features directly into your iPad and iPhone apps with our TextExpander mobile SDK. This free SDK allows TextExpander snippets to work their magic in every app that supports it.
We keep the TextExpander-Enhanced Apps gallery updated with TextExpander supported apps. If you’re a developer who added our SDK to your app, let us know and we’ll add you to the gallery!
But why should you support TextExpander in your apps? Well:
- It will help users type much more quickly and efficiently in your iPad and iPhone apps
- It will make your users happy
- We’ll list you in our TextExpander Enhanced Apps gallery, which our users check when looking for new apps
- We made it easy for you to get started
- You can find all our resources on our SDK page
We hope this can help everyone get more done faster while out and about. Let us know what you think on our TextExpander support page, on Twitter @TextExpander, and LinkedIn.
