Here is a common problem that we all face. You're typing a text message on your iPhone, and the built-in auto-correction feature changes a word, and it doesn't make sense. The text is sent before you even realize the error. The good news is that you can prevent this from happening by changing your keyboard settings.

You can completely turn off the autocorrect feature, control auto-capitalization, predictive text, and other options, or create text replacements to convert an entire word or series of letters to something else, like your name or your address. Just make sure you are using the latest version of iOS or iPhone. iPadOS. Here's how it works.

Turn off autocorrect

On your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > General > Keyboard. Let's address the issue of the elephant in the room right away. To prevent your text from being changed or autocorrected to something else, turn off the autocorrect option.

Now when you open a text message and start typing, it will no longer change words that are not in the keyboard dictionary, such as proper nouns. Instead of trying to edit those words, your phone will just flag them as possible misspellings.

If you make a mistake, you can always call for help from your keyboard. Tap on the misspelled word, and a list of alternative spellings and words will appear. Touch the correct spelling if you want to replace the word you typed. If you'd rather not see the red lines indicating a likely misspelled word, return to the keyboard settings screen and turn off the Check Spelling option.

Disable predictive text

Predictive text offers suggestions for your current word and the next word, but does not impose its suggestions on you. The predictive feature also displays the word you type in quotes along with its other suggestions, so you can easily choose that word if it's correct.

If you don't want your phone to predict what you're about to type, go to the keyboard settings screen and turn off the switch next to the predictive feature. However, we recommend that you keep this feature enabled, especially if you disable autocorrect and spell checking.

Text Replacement

If you decide not to turn off autocorrect and spell checking, you can add words and phrases to your keyboard dictionary so they don't get flagged. Open the keyboard settings screen and tap on Text replacement, then select the + icon. Now type the word or phrase you want to add in the Phrase box. Leave the Shortcut box empty and press Save. Now when you type the added text, it will no longer be flagged as incorrect.

Instead of having to type a certain word or phrase every time, you can create a shortcut, and it will convert automatically. On the keyboard settings screen, tap Text Replacement and select the + icon. Type the phrase, then add the corresponding shortcut.

For example, you can add your full name in the expression field and use your initials as a shortcut. When you want your full name to appear in text or email, just type the shortcut. To remove a shortcut from the list, swipe it to the left and tap Remove.

Any saved words or shortcuts are added across all your Apple devices, provided iCloud sync is turned on. You'll find them available to you in built-in apps like Mail, Notes, Reminders, Contacts, and Safari, as well as third-party apps like Facebook and Twitter.

Speech Recognition

You can often avoid typing by speaking your words. Make sure Enable Dictation is enabled. In your text message, tap the microphone icon, then start speaking. Remember to include punctuation marks when speaking. Speech recognition is quite accurate, so it should be able to capture most of your words correctly.

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More keyboard settings to tweak

You can further customize your keyboard from the settings screen. Although many of them are useful features, you can disable them by turning off their switch.

On an iPad, the Enable Key Clicks option is a quick way to type an alternate character. By pressing a specific key on the keyboard, the character that appears at the top of the key is entered. For example, if you press the A key the key enters an @, by going down on the D the key enters a $ and by clicking on the X the key enters a –. By clicking on one of the keys located at the top of the screen, you can enter a number. Unless you constantly get the wrong key by clicking instead of typing, you'll want to keep this option enabled.

Swipe to Type for iPhone or Swipe the Floating Keyboard to Type on iPad lets you slide your finger along different keys to form a word. Often a faster way to create a word, this option shouldn't interfere with your usual typing, whether you use it or not. So you can usually leave it on.

Deleting word input deletes the entire previous word you typed by swiping. If you find that the swipe feature sometimes produces incorrect words that you need to change, you can disable this option to correct them more easily.

On an iPhone, Character Preview shows a larger preview of each character you type on the keyboard to confirm that you pressed the correct key. For some people, this option can be awkward or distracting. For others, it's a useful way to know more clearly if you're pressing the right key. The option for “. Shortcut automatically inserts a period if you press the spacebar twice, an effective way to end a sentence and start a new one.