Is there any setting I can change on my iPad to prevent one tap from selecting an entire word?

Toggle OFF the following if you want to avoid selecting words as you edit on iOS

General > keyboard > show predictions inline

(see bottom of the attached screenshot)

Now when I want to select a word, I need to double tap on it. But if I just tap on a word, the cursor goes either to the front or the back of it (as desired).

Someone else suggested that the slide-to-type feature was the source of the problem here, but this feature has nothing to do with selecting words while you're editing. (Rather, it's the feature that allows you to slide your fingers along the keyboard instead of lifting & tapping for each letter.)

njzeus: This has been a major pain for me on my iphone .. the Mail app. Tapping on the screen will have the cursor select the a full word .. and then have it pop up very wrong and misspelled replacements.

After much toying around, I figured that if you turn off the “Slide To Type” option under General > Keyboards, it stops this very annoying behavior.

I’m surprised that the Apple rep could not reproduce this behavior. It’s been a major annoyance since the last iOS release.

I understand how frustrating this change in behavior can be for your productivity. Unfortunately, there isn't a specific setting on iOS that allows you to revert to the previous behavior of tapping once to drop the cursor at the front or end of a word. Apple sometimes makes changes to its user interface and features with software updates, and these changes can affect how users interact with their devices.

However, you can try a workaround by adjusting the text selection settings in the Accessibility settings of your iPad. Here's how:

1. Go to Settings on your iPad.

2. Scroll down and tap on Accessibility.

3. Tap on Touch.

4. Toggle off the switch for "Tap to Hold to Select Text."

Disabling this setting may prevent the automatic selection of entire words when tapping once, but it might also affect other aspects of text selection and interaction.

Additionally, you can provide feedback to Apple about this change through the Feedback app or Apple's website. They may consider user feedback when making future updates to iOS.

I hope this helps alleviate some of the frustration you're experiencing.

Turn off the check spelling toogle. it’s the only workaround!! Apple please fix it for iphone also!

Thank you so much yohaan!!

That has been a major irritant to me and your fix works except it was Delete slide-to-type by word I had to uncheck.

I quite like side to type itself, just not the selection and deletion of a whole word as soon as you drop the cursor anywhere.

Oddly I found that although "slide to type" is definitely the problem, i needed to switch mine on, then also switch on 'delete slide to type' - which only appears if you activate 'slide to type'. This seems to take me back to how it was before, so I can drop in the cursor and it no longer highlights the word either side and offer stupid "corrections". I hope it keeps working!

Hello njzeus,

We understand that you're having an issue when tapping on any kind of message on your iPad after updating the software.

We were able to test this on our end with more than one iPad and we were unable to reproduce what you're experiencing. We'd like to have you try some basics, to try to resolve this issue.

1. Close any apps open on the iPad.
2. Restart the iPad.
3. Test to see if the issue remains.

If the issue persists, take a look at the iPadOS 17 user guide page we have below that might help with resolving what you're experiencing, as some features may have changed.

Select, cut, copy, and paste text on iPad - Apple Support

If the issue remains, you may want to reach out to Apple Support to have this looked into further.

Take care.

Entrigo9 wrote:

Ah, also not being able to place the cursor in the middle of a word when you just need to change/correct a letter.

Sort it out Apple!

Already sorted.

Simply touch the screen near to where you wish to edit text that you have input. Then, place your finger on the spacebar of the onscreen keyboard; hold until the keyboard switches to all-grey; your on-screen keyboard is now a trackpad.

Without lifting your finger from the screen, simply slide your finger (while watching the on-screen cursor) to the position the cursor where you want it to be - and lift your finger.

I may have found another way round this.

I fully sympathize with everyone struggling with this. I just moved from an Android phone and overall prefer the iPhone, but this one problem makes it much harder to use.

it may be different on different devices but on this iPhone 13 I did this:

Settings 

Accessibility 

Touch, touch accommodations

Use initial touch location

But now I notice it doesn’t capitalize at the start of a new sentence.

Geez they don’t make it easy!

To fix this…Instead of clicking in the word where you’re trying to correct a letter, click at the end of the word and it will allow you to move the cursor through the word to place it where you want to edit.

Yup. My iPhone has reverted to only selecting words and disallowing any attempt to place a cursor in or at the end of a word. Sounds like disabling swipe-type fixes it but that means going back a few years in functionality. Always a shame when the new product is worse than the old one 🤦‍♂️

Just posting to say thank you to user @yohaan16 for posting about turning off the ‘slide to type’ setting.

Recently switched from Android to iPhone, and have to say that this behavior of selecting the whole word is is the most unintuitive, annoying, user-unfriendly behavior … so glad this can be turned off, and wish Apple could make it more clear what these settings actually do ….

Turned off slide to type and it is much better, may God make you rich and successful😃

Muddycleric wrote:

Turned off slide to type and it is much better, may God make you rich and successful😃

May the great goddess Athena make you wise.

Apparently, disabling spell checking helps. Thanks snehajit35.