Droid X: The Missing Manual

Chapter 2. Typing and Texting

For most people, the whole point of a smartphone like the Droid X instead of a 10-key cellphone is the keyboard. Once you get past voice calls and move on to text messaging, email, and web surfing, you need an easy way to enter text, and once again the Droid X comes through with flying colors. It gives you two onscreen keyboards—one that you can tap to type the usual way, and one that lets you swiftly swipe your way through words without even lifting your fingertip from the screen.

This chapter is about all the things the Droid X lets you do with text. From basic typing, you move on to editing, searching, text messaging, and chatting. Warm up those fingers and read on.

The Keyboards

It’s true, an onscreen keyboard just isn’t the same as a real one. The familiar feel of clicking away on nice big keys is nowhere to be found on the Droid X. To enter text, you tap on the virtual keyboard (or speak into the phone, as you’ll see later in this chapter). Even if you’re a hardcore keyboarder, though, you’ll likely find that the Droid X’s two keyboard styles make it surprisingly easy to enter text.

Whichever keyboard you use, it automatically appears when you tap somewhere you can enter text, like an email message, a text message, in the address bar of a web browser, and so on.

The Droid X’s two keyboards are:

• Multi-touch keyboard. This keyboard is typically the one you see when you first turn on your Droid X. It works as you would expect: Tap a key to enter it.

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