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Albeeboy Author

Level 1

4 points

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

Top-ranking reply

Douglas Bailey

Level 1

78 points

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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27 replies

Feb 3, 2013 2:17 PM in response to ST67

Hah! : )

Reader60

Level 1

0 points

Apr 4, 2013 5:47 PM in response to Mscoverson

Thank you for your help as I've not got an eject or reject key, but the F4 does the job nicely. I love my emoji's. so thanks

Reader60

Level 1

0 points

Apr 4, 2013 5:51 PM in response to Albeeboy

Thank you too as you helped me look over the keyboard more closely and gave me a clue about emoji's & how to deal with it.

Nov 5, 2013 8:10 AM in response to hraynm

Try pressing function - 5, mine has a little keyboard symbol above it.

Pmbpet

Level 1

0 points

Apr 25, 2014 10:02 AM in response to Albeeboy

Thanks so much!!!

ImLD13

Level 1

0 points

Nov 13, 2014 3:53 PM in response to Albeeboy

For those of you with the Bear Motion blurtooth keyboard, there is no eject key, so to bring up the keyboard on screen, use Fn+4. Hope this could be of help!

Apr 23, 2015 3:50 PM in response to Albeeboy

this worked great for me; thanks albeeboy!

Oct 20, 2015 7:23 PM in response to ST67

Hi ST67,

I'm using Logitech Bluetooth Keyboard.

To send msg via Whatsapp, Messenger, etc without touching the screen, It's CMD + Enter (Return).

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Darren

Oct 20, 2015 7:25 PM in response to MrMcCruzer

Hi MrMcCruzer,

Try CMD + Enter (Return). Hope it helps!

Regards,

Darren

Aug 20, 2016 3:41 AM in response to Albeeboy

Great Tip, thanks!

Unfortunately I have the universal foldable keyboard from microsoft, which doesn´t have the eject or the F buttons.

What shall I do? I need emojis!

😟

Please help!

Aug 20, 2016 1:55 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Yeah!

It worked!

Sooo great!

Thanks a lot!

Sep 8, 2017 11:15 PM in response to Albeeboy

The answer have been here for 6 years and I did not see it until now. There is most likely A LOT of smart tricks that too many of us find too late :-)

iPad with Bluetooth keyboard--access Emoji characters