How to find a desired selection quickly in pull-down or pop-up menus by typing first few letters on iPad

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Level 1

4 points

How to find a desired selection quickly in pull-down or pop-up menus by typing first few letters on iPad

It's driving me insane as I am trying to figure out how to quickly pull up a desired selection on a pop-up menu or pull-down menu on iPad. For example, if I am filling out a form or any document on web, and it has a field where if you click on it, it shows a list or menu from which you are supposed to scroll and select whatever choice / selection applies to you. It can be field like "State" or "Physician Name" and you can select the name of your State or your Physician name from that list. In Windows, when you click on such a field, you can start typing the first few letters of your choice like "Ala" for Alabama, and it'll instantly plug in Alabama for you instead of you having to scroll down the entire list to find Alabama. On iPad apparently, you can't do that. I tried typing on the magic keyboard to pull up my desired selection but nothing happens. I have to manually scroll down the entire list to find what I am looking for. Is there not a solution or equivalent shortcut for something like this on iPad?? Please Help !!

iPad Pro, iPadOS 16

Posted on Jun 5, 2024 1:01 PM

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Answer 1

sberman

Level 10

275,322 points

Jun 5, 2024 1:57 PM in response to shez8181

Settings > General > Keyboard > Predictive Text = “on”

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Answer 2

shez8181 Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 7, 2024 10:42 AM in response to sberman

Predictive text only works if you're typing in a regular open space / field where you can type. What I am referring to is a menu or list of items in which when you type, you cannnot see the letters you are typing but as you are typing, the menu brings up enteries inside of it that closely matches what you are typing. For example, in the "State" menu, when you type, "Ala", you can't see the letters you typed but the menu automatically brings up Alabama since it is the closest entry that matches the first few letters you typed. On the iPad, when I type in the menu, nothing happens and the menu doesn't bring up the closest matching item as described above. I am not sure if this is an iOS deficiency or if there is another way to do the same thing on the iPad.

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