Since the first versions of the Google operating system, one of its main features has been personalization. Google allows you to apply certain "layers" over your operating system so that each user adapts their device to their tastes and needs: launchers, icons, color themes, keyboards, etc.
Most of these aspects are available from the Android application store, the Play Store, so installing them is very simple and can be done without problems as one more application.
In this tutorial we will explain how to install different keyboards in Android and how to alternate between them. Some of the most known and used keyboards are:
Install and activate the keyboard
The first thing we must do is download and install them as any application. The next step is to activate the keyboard to indicate to Android that we are going to use the keyboard on the device. For security reasons, Google keeps keyboards "deactivated" once they are installed until they are activated manually to prevent malicious applications from replacing the keyboard and recording all the user's keystrokes.
To activate the keyboard we must open the settings menu and select "Language and text input" there.
A window similar to the following will appear.
As we can see, here we will select the general language of the device, the default spell checker and in the lower part the different keyboards installed. By default our device will come with one or several (depending on the company and the manufacturer), although those that install part will also appear in this list.
In each of the keyboards we see a box on the left. This box will indicate if the keyboard is activated or deactivated. We must deactivate the keyboards that we do not use (to save resources) and leave only the keyboard that we are going to use activated.
When activating a keyboard we will see a message that warns us of the risk that the keyboard, if it is not reliable, can record our pulsations.
Once activated the keyboards that we are going to use and deactivated those that we will not already be ready to choose the keyboard that we are going to use to write.
Switch between keyboards
You can choose the keyboard to use in 2 different ways:
From the settings menu, where we have activated the keyboard to use it
In the language and text entry menu, where we have activated the keyboards to use them, we have an entry called "default".
If we click on it, a window will open where we will select the keyboard that we want to use by default.
In the notification bar when clicking on a text box
In the most frequent versions of Android when we click on a text box we will see a notification about the keyboard.
Simply click on it to open a window of choice of input method to quickly change the keyboard without having to open the settings menu.
Configure the keyboards
Each keyboard has its internal configuration options that allow us to configure it according to our tastes and needs. Generally the different keyboards install an icon in the application launcher from which to access the configuration options.
However, if not, from Settings> Language and text entry we can access the configuration options of all installed keyboards, activated or deactivated, using the settings icon that appears on the right side of the entry.
