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iPad with Bluetooth keyboard--access Emoji characters

Hi everyone! Here's a tip for those who use the iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard. I didn't know this before and just now discovered it, so to me it was not obvious. Anyway, if you enable Bluetooth and connect to a Bluetooth keyboard on the iPad, whenever you tap on a text field to enter type, you don't automatically get the screen keyboard...it is disabled as long as you have the Bluetooth keyboard linked up. This seems to be true system wide, and in all of the 3rd party apps that I have. I wanted to use Emoji, especially in iMessages, and I couldn't figure out how when the Bluetooth keyboard was linked. Well, on the Bluetooth keyboard, if you press the "eject" key (top right key with the triangle pointing up), this will reveal the on-screen keyboard and you can select the Emoji keyboard from there. Just in case anyone else was wondering about this, whether they wanted to access Emoji or any other of the enabled virtual keyboards.

iPad 2, iOS 5, Black 32 GB Wi-Fi

Posted on Oct 27, 2011 2:03 PM

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Posted on Sep 13, 2017 11:35 PM

An alternative currently working on my Logitech keyboard is to press Ctrl+Space to toggle through all the keyboards you have loaded.


It works like Alt+Tab switches between apps. i.e. You can keep holding Ctrl and hit Space to keep advancing through your keyboards. Just like you can keep holding Alt and hit Tab to move through open apps.

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Sep 13, 2017 11:35 PM in response to Albeeboy

An alternative currently working on my Logitech keyboard is to press Ctrl+Space to toggle through all the keyboards you have loaded.


It works like Alt+Tab switches between apps. i.e. You can keep holding Ctrl and hit Space to keep advancing through your keyboards. Just like you can keep holding Alt and hit Tab to move through open apps.

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Jul 25, 2013 5:33 AM in response to Thom_D

Thaks Thom_D

My Bluetooth keyboard doesn't have the eject button either, but it does have the blue fn key. I ought the keyboard recently, and hadn't used this before.

I have found that since using fn6, instead of alt3 to get a ≠, I now have to alt+ for the ≠. Or you can fn6 for the ≠ keyboard

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Oct 8, 2013 8:11 AM in response to Reader60

On my Logitech keyboard-cover for iPad, there is no Eject nor does F6 or F4 work. But (duh) I realized there is a keyboard button associated with F3. Using F3, I can toggle the Emoji keyboard on and off the screen. The bluetooth keyboard will work while the Emoji keyboard is visible, too.

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Jun 12, 2012 9:33 AM in response to Albeeboy

I have the Logitech Bluetooth keyboard for iPad. It doesn't have the eject key but looking it over I realized it had a blue function key in the shape of a keyboard on the 6 key. Press and hold the blue FN key and then tap the 6/Keyboard Key and voila up pops the on screen keyboard. Access the emoji character I want and then hide the keyboard again either by tapping the on screen keyboard hide key or pressing FN+6 again.

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May 12, 2012 8:23 AM in response to Albeeboy

Thank you soooo much! . I was really stumped on this one. Yes, I'm a beginner, but, even still, I though I would come across solution more intuitively. I'm so glad you shared your experience. I have a another question now, which further demonstrates what a novice I am, . . but, can you SEND the imessage without touching the "Send" button on the ipad screen. Is there a shortcut on the keyboard that will send it?


Thanks again.

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Feb 3, 2013 12:19 PM in response to MrMcCruzer

Hi. I too would really like to know if there is a shortcut button that allows us to send iMessages without touching the send button on the touchscreen! Sorry, I haven't discovered that one yet. However, I did discover the other night by accident that you can wake and then unlock the iPad without touching the 'slider' on the iPad's screen:


(on the Logitech BT Keyboard) by toucing the 'screen lock button' in the top, right corner of the keyboard or the 'minimize button' in the top left and then touching some other button on the keyboard. This unlocks the iPad's screen and takes you back to last thing you were doing before you locked it. Handy to know, I thought.

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Feb 3, 2013 2:19 PM in response to BobDrummer

On thinking about that further, I realize that I was thrown off by the imformation that came with the Logitech keyboard. I just pushed the 'lock button' to wake the iPad without investigating further. It's funny that I never wound up pushing another key be acccident!


Thanks again.


If anyone knows how to 'send' texts and the like without touching the button on screen, I would love to hear about that. I have noticed that the 'enter' button on the keyboard has many places where it works quite well, but it's not universal unfortunately....

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Sep 16, 2013 10:45 PM in response to Albeeboy

On my iPhone 4, I recently added the emoji keyboard in Settings/General/Keyboard/Keyboards/Add New Keyboard. To my surprise, when I again connected either of two Logitech Bluetooth keyboards, I found the keys were completely mis-mapped (i.e. - the keys pressed did not correspond to the characters being typed on the iPhone 4 screen.) This rendered the bluetooth keyboards useless.

But when I deleted the emoji keys from my iPhone settings, and then reconnected the Bluetooth keyboards, the keys were once again correctly mapped.

Any ideas why this might be so?

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Oct 18, 2016 1:53 PM in response to Albeeboy

OMG!!!!! This is so awesome! Thank you so very much. I've been wanting to use emoji's in my iMessages and emails for so long and never could figure out how to get them. THANK YOU! I always say there isn't ANY question for me so far that I haven't found an answer for searching the web. Just have to take the time to ASK! Aloha from Hawaii!

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iPad with Bluetooth keyboard--access Emoji characters

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