How to Use Your iPad Pt. 2: A Simple, Basic Guide to Training Just Using Your Finger!

Getting to Know Your iPad Keyboard.

Part. 1 Writing or Keying.

In Part one, How To Use Your iPad A simple Guide, I talked about how to turn on your iPad and showed you the basic buttons. This may sound ridiculous but believe me when I say, sometimes it is the easiest thing that is the hardest to do! I have been stumped completely sometimes just by not being able to figure out where the darn button was! We always believe that if we buy any sort of new technology these days, we are so computer literate that we know everything before we even start. Well we don't. At least I don't, so I can only guess that other people when confronted with an iPad or an iPhone etc will get very frustrated because they just want to get on with it, and can't figure out how to even get started. That is why I am writing this and the last instructions, very simply, and easy to understand. As I stated before, the inventors and the media who promote the iPad, seem to forget that they know how it works, and when they write the instructions, they can see it in their head as they go. Well we are not telepathic! So we have to learn it in a way that is easy and as stress free as possible.

 I just want to remind you how to unlock your iPad. If you don't use it for a few minutes, the ipad automatically locks. Don't panic! All you have to do is:

Press the sleep/wake button. Or press the Home button. Both these buttons were explained in part one. When you have pressed the button, the on-screen slider will appear. Drag the slider to the right, with your finger, and in some cases this is the place where you may have to enter a passcode.

Now to do finger yoga! The screen will be used in a way that has never been done before. So you have to learn how to flick it, squeeze it and tap it, this is as well as drag it! Fun eh?

You tap to open an icon, double tap to zoom in or out, and Flick to scroll down through your e-mails or pictures. You can also Tap on the screen to stop it scrolling about.

Now to Pinching! This is a bit more difficult, it takes practise. Place your two fingers on the edge of the Web page, or picture. To enlarge the picture spread your fingers, and to make it smaller, sqeeze them together. Then we get to Drag. It's a bit like a lap top where you have to keep your finger on the pad and drag it across the screen. As I said, it takes a bit of practise. I know!

There are other icon screens 'behind' the Home screen. To get to them you can do a couple of different things. first, in between the main icons, you will see two or more tiny dots and a Spotlight search magnifying glass.

To navigate, all you have to do is either flick your finger from right to left, or vice versa, to reveal the new screens or tap directly on the dots. Just be careful how you do this or you may open one of the icons because you are using to much pressure.

When the dot is white, it denotes the screen that you are on at the time. If at any time you want to start again, just press on the Home Button. Be careful because if you press the Home switch twice it will bring you to a search page. Just do it once.

Finger typing on the virtual keyboard.

Now this is either going to drive you mad to start with, or you may sail away like an expert. So don't panic if you don't get it right first time. It is like anything, you have to train your brain and your fingers.

When you start typing, the key that you press will darken so that you can see which one you have hit. This is great as you can straight away rectify your mistakes.

Now this is really important. If you do hit the wrong letter, keep your finger on it and slide across to the one that you want. The keyboard will not record the letter until you have taken your finger off of the keyboard! Clever eh?

Right next, still with me? Good! If you want to send a message to your friend or get a different character, for example foreign alphabets, tap and hold the letter that you are keying in. Once again, slide your finger until you find the right accent that you want. Takes practice! If you want the keyboard to tell you a suggested word, tap the Space Key. If you want it to disappear, tap it again. don't worry if you make a spelling mistake, the software knows that you made a mistake and will underline it for you with the right spelling, you just tap to accept. Clever little thing!

Oh by the way, if you want numbers instead of letters, tap the 123 key. If you want to go back, tap the ABC key.

Don't worry about keying in your words, the iPad will sort out many of your mistakes for you. But if you do want to change something, hold your finger over the magnifying glass icon, use it to position the pointer to the spot or letter that you want changing, and then use the Backspace key to delete the error. Then finish of by re-writing.

 Now as this is a very clever little Gadget, you will be able to copy text and images from the Web, and then paste them into an e-mail. And this can be done for Video's and photos too. So, go to your Notes Application, and write a few words.  Then choose the word that you want to be copied, or if you are feeling very clever tap a block of words. Then, and here we go, tap Select All if you want all the text or the adjacent word if you only want that particular word. Then you tap Copy. If you choose to delete it, then tap Cut instead.

Now open the Mail Programme: Start writing your mail, and when you get to the bit where you want to insert your copied message or picture, just tap the Cursor. And Voila, up pops the commands to Select, Select All, and Paste! There you go, you get the idea? Great stuff!

Tap Paste: Now for the Abracadabra bit! If you make a mistake doing any of this, just shake the iPad! It undoes the last bit that you have just done! Clever Eh?

So, there we have the first session on how to use your keyboard. You can see the basics of the keyboard, and how to access it, write on it, and most of all not panic about it! I have added a very useful video, that not only shows you how to key, but will let you see the way to rectify mistakes. It sounds scarier than it actually is. Once you have got the hang of that, you will feel like you can take on the world! Ha.