iPad keyboard secrets.

The iPad keyboard is a clever little thing. It can make typing on your iPad a surprisingly smooth experience once you get the hang.


Turn to Landscape.
Once you get used to the fact that turning your iPad is part of its function, it ceases to become an annoyance. Most apps are designed so that you edit in Portrait mode and enter text in Landscape mode. When you turn to Landscape both the text and keyboard get bigger making typing allot easier. The keys are actually just a hair smaller than on a real Mac keyboard.


Have faith.
The keyboard corrects itself. Just type and don't worry about your mistakes. When you're finished, go back and you'll be surprised at how many have already been corrected for you.


What would you autosuggest?
With many words you'll get an Autosuggest popup with an x beside it. Tapping the spacebar accepts the suggestion. Tapping the x gets rid of it.


Autopunctuate.
Typing a double space after a word will insert a period, add a space and cap the first letter of the next sentence. You can turn off Auto Cap in Settings>General>Keyboard. Also, for most words that require an apostrophe, just type without it and iPad inserts it. We're doesn't work. If you want its, you'll have to tap the x on the popup.


A key of many characters.
When you hold down certain keys you'll get more options. If you want an é, just hold down the e key and tap it in the pop up. You'll find extras logically hiding under these keys: e y u i o a s l z x c n ! , . 0 - $ & @ ? ! % ' "

Note that the " key hides smart quotes and the - key hides an emdash.


Slide into numbers.
To quickly add a digit, hold the Shift key and slide up. The numbers keyboard appears and disappears when you release from your choice.


Unlocking Caps Lock.
In Settings>Keyboard>General you can enable Caps Lock. Once enabled, double tap the Shift key to turn it on and single tap to turn it off.


Scratch that.
The Delete key will backspace through single characters if you hold it. Keep holding and it will start deleting whole words. Careful, it get vicious. To quickly delete a single word, double tap on it and hit the delete key. To delete a whole paragraph, triple or quadruple tap on a word in the paragraph and hit the delete key. There are Undo and Redo keys on the second and third keyboards.


Netcuts.
In Safari and Mail holding the period key will give you .com and other options. Safari doesn't need a whole address in the URL bar. apple.com gets you there. apple will get you there too, since safari tries dot com as the first option.


It learns your style.
The keyboard actually learns how you type. After you've typed a word that's not in the Autosuggest list three times, it's added. When you've dismissed a word three times, it's removed. The more you use a word, the more likely it becomes an Autosuggest choice.You can seed your Autosuggest list by adding the words to the note field of any contact since Autosuggest uses Contacts as one of its databases. If you really screwed up the database the first few days you had your iPad you can reset it at Home>Settings>General>Reset>Reset Keyboard Dictionary.


Spellcheck.
Most apps have Spellcheck enabled. Red dots under a word means iPad questions it. Tap the word and you get suggestions. Even if the word is spelled correctly but not what you meant, it can change the word for you. Double tap a word and choose Replacement. You'll get a popup with suggestions.


Give your writing some definition.
iPad has the same sensible built-in dictionary that Mac does. Currently Pages is the only app that uses it. In Pages, double tap on a word, choose More, and choose Dictionary.


Go international. Or go crazy.
In Setttings>General>Keyboard you can enable the international keyboards. The Chinese keyboard even allows you to handwrite ideograms. One of nice features of a virtual keyboard is that iPad can easily do alternative keyboards, like Dvorak.


The option of no options.
Autocap, autosentence, autocorrect are all able to be disabled in Settings>General>Keyboard

These are the tricks I have discovered. If I find more I'll update this post.