How to Add Keyboard Shortcuts to Your Apple iPhone

Keyboard shortcuts can be a great way to save some time when typing out long e-mails or text messages on your Apple iPhone. A keyboard shortcut is a short phrase that triggers your iPhone to automatically insert a much longer phrase into a message. For example, instead of constantly typing out “I’m on my way” in a message, you can just type “omw” or some variation thereof. Your iPhone will then automatically insert the longer “I’m on my way” in place of the shortcut. You can set up any keyboard shortcut you’d like on your iPhone in just a few short moments.

Step 1

Turn on your iPhone and navigate to the unit’s main “Home” screen. Scroll through your icon pages and folders until you find the “Settings” application. Open the application to continue the process.

Step 2

Tap “General.” Though the “General” category should be selected by default, if it isn’t you can select it by tapping on its name one time in the list of options. Scroll through the “General” setting until you find the menu option labeled “Keyboard.” Tap the “Keyboard” option one time to continue.

Step 3

Scroll to the bottom of the “Keyboard” screen. The section labeled “Shortcuts” will show you all of the shortcuts that already exist on your iPhone. Each iPhone comes pre-programmed with certain keyboard shortcuts. Tap the button labeled “Add New Shortcut” to create a new keyboard shortcut of your own.

Step 4

Type the phrase you want to create a shortcut for into the box on screen labeled “Phrase.” You should type the longer phrase that you want your iPhone to automatically type each time you enter the keyboard shortcut into a particular box. This can be whatever phrase you’d like, no matter how long or short.

Step 5

Type the shortcut you want to use into the box labeled “Shortcut.” Type something simple that you can remember. When finished, tap the button labeled “Save.” Your new keyboard shortcut will be saved. Every time you type the shortcut, your iPhone will automatically replace it with the longer phrase that you specified.

You can add as many keyboard shortcuts as you’d like to your iPhone by returning to the “Keyboard” window and tapping on the “Add New Shortcut” button.