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up vote 6 down vote favorite

I've got a Samsung Galaxy Tab GT-I9100 running Android 2.3.5.

I love the "Swype" keyboard except I really want arrow keys. Is there please a way to add them or switch them on?

(Background)
I know I can tap the text entry box and a little pointer appears, but that's just not usable. Often, the vertical bar is always several characters off from where I drag the pointer to. If I want to insert text somewhere outside the visible area, its near impossible to get it to scroll to the right point.

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3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

The version of Swype pre-loaded on most Gingerbread Galaxy S's does have arrow keys built in.

Swipe your finger across from the Swype button in the bottom left corner of the keyboard to the SYM button alongside it, and you should see the cursor control screen instead.

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Just tap the ABC button to get back to the normal keyboard.

(the other useful extra keyboard you can get is a proper num pad by swiping from the Swype key to the F key in middle of the keyboard).

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+1 for another Swype feature I hadn't noticed. Works on my Droid Bionic (2.3 Gingerbread) and Transformer Prime (4.0.3 ICS). – TomG Mar 13 '12 at 2:24
Yes yes yes! Thank you. Exactly what I was looking for without having to download anything new. – Bill P. Godfrey Mar 13 '12 at 19:45
Really great... – Sachin Shekhar Mar 14 '12 at 13:26
up vote 5 down vote

Following keyboard apps have arrow keys:

Simply install them.

Hacker's Keyboard is not liked on smartphones due to its small buttons, but as you are on tablet, I'd recommend it to you. It has all keys found on a PC's physical keyboard (including even Control, Alt etc keys). Take a look of it: Hacker's Keyboard

Use Go Keyboard if you want style. It supports more layouts, themes and languages. It supports swipe-based input, too.

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+1 for GO keyboard. Lots of features. :D – geffchang Mar 12 '12 at 4:58
Go Keyboard is my primary keyboard. But, when I use Connect Bot to access my remote servers, I switch to Hacker's Keyboard. – Sachin Shekhar Mar 12 '12 at 6:19
up vote 0 down vote

Current version of Swype (as of this writing) doesn't have the arrow keys feature. I would suggest putting in a feature request on Swype forums.

With that said, there are many alternative keyboard apps on the Google Play Store with the arrow keys built in.

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