Android tablet keyboard and screen

What you will need

Before you begin, check that your tablet is fully charged and showing the Home screen. Your operating system software should also be fully up to date.

Remember, there are lots of different brands of Android tablet, and they all do things slightly differently. Some of the screens on your tablet might look a little different to the ones on this guide, but you should still be able to follow along.

Understanding the on-screen keyboard

A modern tablet can be as powerful as a laptop computer, but it doesn’t come with a physical keyboard permanently attached. Android has what we call an on-screen keyboard, that appears whenever you tap in a text-entry field on the screen of your tablet.

One place you’ll use the keyboard a lot is in the web browser. Android tablets include a web browser called Chrome, so let’s open it up.

1. Swipe up from the bottom of the Home screen to show the Apps screen. You will see a grid of icons.
2. Find the Google folder and tap on it. When it opens, you’ll see some Google apps.
3. Tap on the Chrome icon to open the web browser.

Using the keyboard with Chrome

If you’ve already browsed the web on your tablet, Chrome will show the last web page you visited. Otherwise, it will show Google’s basic search page. You can see the page fills the whole screen, and no keyboard is visible.

Let’s get the keyboard up so we can type something

1. For this demonstration, tap on the Search bar at the top of the Chrome page to make the keyboard appear at the bottom of the screen.
2. After you tap on the Search bar, the web address in the bar is highlighted blue. On the keyboard, tap the Delete key or the Backspace key to delete the address, and get ready to enter a web search.
3. You can also tap the cross in the right of the Search bar to clear it, or you can even just start typing a new search on the keyboard!

4. Tap on the keyboard letters to spell out the word weather. When you’re finished, tap the Go key to make Chrome search for information about weather.
5. Google will show the search results, but the keyboard will disappear. To get it back, tap in the Search bar again.
6. To type a single uppercase letter, first tap either of the Shift arrows and then tap the letter. After you tap it, the keyboard will switch back to lowercase.
7. To type everything in capitals, tap the Shift arrow twice. You’ll see it turns blue and all the letters on the keyboard will turn to uppercase. You will now type in capitals until you tap the Shift arrow again.
8. To include a space between words, tap the long Space bar at the bottom of the keyboard.

Typing numbers and symbols

What about when you need to type symbols, such as punctuation?

1. To see symbols and punctuation, tap the !#1 key.
2. When the keyboard is in this mode, you can access more symbols by tapping the 1/2 key.
3. To go back to the alphabet and normal typing, tap the ABC key.

Quickly adjusting screen brightness

You can adjust brightness of your screen from the Quick settings menu, which you open by swiping your finger down from the very top of the screen. You can open Quick settings (and many other features) any time, whether you’re in an app, on a phone call, or on a website. For this guide, we’ll open it from the Home screen.

1. Place your finger on the top bezel, which is the black or white area that surrounds the screen.
2. Swipe down from the top of the screen to open the Quick settings panel.
3. To see all the settings, you need to open the full Quick settings panel. To do this, swipe down on the Quick settings panel again.
4. One of the first controls you’ll notice on the Quick settings panel is a horizontal slider bar. This controls screen brightness.
5. Place your finger on the slider and move it to the right to make the screen brighter. This is helpful if you want to use your tablet outside in direct sunlight.
6. Move your finger to the left to make the screen less-bright. You might do this in a darker room or in the evening.
7. Take your finger off the slider to set the brightness to the level you’ve selected.
8. You can close the Quick settings panel by tapping anywhere else on the screen.

Congratulations!

You’ve completed the Android tablet keyboard and screen activity.

Next up, we'll learn the Android tablet: Network settings activity.