That half second delays and having to go back and forth between keyboards to access numbers and characters while typing can get pretty annoying. If you use a password that has letters, symbols and letters or you need to type a lot of numbers and use symbols, this tutorial is for you. Google Keyboard has a hidden feature that enables a dedicated row for symbols and numbers in the same screen that has the alphabets. This will make your email password or Wi-Fi password typing experience convenient. Here’s how you do it.
How to show Hidden Row of Numbers in Google Keyboard on your Android
Locate your settings and preferences
You can access your Google Keyboard settings by opening the Google Keyboard app from your app drawer. However, if you’re using Nexus you need to do the following to access keyboard’s settings. Go to Settings > Language & input > Google Keyboard.
Set up the layout
After you succeed in accessing Google Keyboard’s settings, it’s time to change the current layout to a new one. Navigate to Appearance & layouts > Custom input styles. Once you’re inside, tap on the “+” sign. Select the language of your choice and then choose “PC” for the layout. Finally tap on “Add” to add the layout.
Enable the new layout
After you tap “Add”, you’ll be prompted with a popup where you have to tap on “Enable”. To make sure your new custom keyboard layout is turned on you need to turn off “Use system language” and enable “English (US) (PC) from Settings > Language & input > Google Keyboard > Input languages.
Now, let’s start using your new PC styled custom keyboard. You can see that the keyboard is different now and looks much like the keyboard you use on your PC. Now you can type those numbers easily. You can access the symbols my long-pressing the associated digit but if you are on the tablet mode, you can see the symbols.
If the new PC keyboard layout is not what you wanted or is unsatisfying and you want to revert it back to old layout, you can simply remove it. Here’s how.
How to remove the custom layout
All you need to do is head back to the “Custom input styles” (Settings > Language & input > Google Keyboard > to Appearance & layouts > Custom input styles) and select the custom layout you want to delete and then tap “Remove”.
