Physical keyboards on a phone are now a thing of the past, and that means you need to rely on on-screen keyboard apps for typing.

Google’s Gboard isn’t everybody’s favorite, but it’s one of the best keyboard apps and is pre-installed with almost all Android handsets. You can also enhance the Gboard experience with certain tweaks.

While enhancements mean different things to different people, everyone wants to type faster with accuracy on their phones.

Gboard has underrated features you can use to type at a better speed. You may not be aware of them, because those aren’t as straightforward as you’d like.

If you aren’t aware of them for long enough, you develop some bad typing habits, which could ultimately lead to a slow typing experience.

Gboard’s features can offset the effects and allow you to type faster, but only if you drop these six habits.

Google’s Gboard has a major accessibility issue in the form of not switching to the letter keyboard automatically when users add a symbol or punctuation mark from the number keyboard.

This means you first need to switch to the number keyboard, add the symbol or punctuation mark, and then go back to the letter keyboard. It isn’t the most convenient and takes time, especially when you have to do it multiple times.

Gboard may get an automatic switching feature in future updates, but it already has a clever way to add symbols that don’t require you to quit the letter keyboard.

Instead, long press the period key to open a pop-up containing popular symbols and punctuation marks, including &, !, :, @, ?, and more. You can swipe left/right and up/down to add it to your text.

Don’t delete and retype to change a word’s capitalization

If you use Gboard, you can change a word’s capitalization without deleting and retyping it. To make the edit, select the word and tap the Shift key.

Tapping the Shift key once will make the first letter of the word capital, while the second tap will uppercase all letters. Tapping it for the third time will bring it back to its original state.

Don’t tap the Shift key for uppercasing

Tapping the Shift key to uppercase a letter is a popular method, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to capitalize a letter.

Instead, use Gboard’s Glide feature to uppercase a letter in just one swipe.

To capitalize a letter, open the keyboard, long press the Shift key, and then drag your finger to the letter and release.

Stop tapping in the middle of words and hoping you land in the right spot

Fixing a typo on touch screen devices can be hard if you don’t know the right technique.

Instead of tapping in the middle of a word to place the cursor in the exact spot you want, swipe the spacebar left or right to move the cursor precisely through text.

This makes text correction a breeze on Gboard.

Quit typing fractions manually

English paragraphs don’t always consist of letters and punctuation marks. This is one of the major downsides of on-screen keyboards. Not all characters are always easy to find.

This limitation also exists in the Gboard app, but if it’s specifically about adding popular fractions to your text, no one does it better than Google.

Instead of manually typing fractions, Gboard lets you long-tap the number to open a pop-up containing all its popular fractions. You can select the one you need by swiping left/right or up/down.

Stop hunting for the period key to finish sentences

If you type a long paragraph in the English language, the period key will likely be one of the most used punctuation marks. Gboard does well by making it easily accessible from the letter keyboard.

However, on the flip side, having it always available can make you forget about the spacebar trick, which gives you a cleaner way of finishing your sentences.

If you tap the period key on Gboard, it marks the end of one sentence. Next, you have to add a space bar and then tap the Shift key to start another sentence. That’s too many steps.

The best way to add a period to your sentences is to double-tap the spacebar. Not only does double-tapping the spacebar add a period, but it also automatically adds a space and capitalizes the next letter.

It might take some time to get used to them

It’s not easy to change how you’ve been doing certain things all these years. This also applies to typing.

So, now that you’re aware of what and how to do it, try to develop the muscle-memory connection, without expecting that it’ll dramatically improve your typing speed in a short time.

The only way to drop your bad habits faster is by typing more, while also keeping in mind and implementing those tricks.

For those who intend to switch to Gboard, it might be more difficult, because in that case, you need to get used to its interface, besides developing those good typing habits.

Your patience is worth it because the result is a faster and more convenient typing experience on Gboard.