Setup and help
Turning SprintText on takes about a minute.
iOS keeps third-party keyboards behind a couple of Settings screens. Here is the route, and what each permission is actually for.
Step by step
Adding the keyboard.
-
Open Settings
Go to General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard. The SprintText app has an “Open Settings” button on its Setup tab that takes you most of the way.
-
Choose SprintText
It appears under Third-Party Keyboards. Tap it once and it is added.
-
Switch to it while typing
In any text field, press and hold the globe key and pick SprintText. iOS remembers your choice per app.
-
Decide about Full Access
Optional. Typing, expansion and suggestions all work without it. Grant it if you want haptic feedback, and later for syncing between devices.
First run
Make one shortcut, then test it.
- Open the SprintText app. The Shortcuts tab is where your library lives; tap the plus button to add one.
- Give it a trigger of two or three characters that is not a real word, and the text it should become.
- Switch to the Try It tab. It has a scratch field and lists your saved triggers underneath.
- Press and hold the globe key, choose SprintText, type your trigger and press space.
Settings worth knowing
The handful of settings that change how it feels.
| Setting | What it does | When to change it |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum trigger length | Refuses to expand triggers shorter than this, from one to six characters | Raise it if a shortcut is firing by accident; lower it if you want two-character triggers |
| Suggestion bar | Shows or hides the bar above the keys | Hide it if you would rather have the screen space |
| Autocorrect strength | Four levels, from suggest-only to aggressive | Turn it down if it keeps changing names and jargon on you |
| Auto-capitalisation | Capitalises the first letter of a sentence | Off if you prefer to do it yourself |
| “.” shortcut | Two spaces become a full stop and a space | Off if you type a lot of code or identifiers |
| Haptic feedback | A tap under each key press | Requires Full Access |
| Keyboard appearance | System, light or dark, independent of your phone | Whenever the system choice does not suit you |
Troubleshooting
When something is not working.
The keyboard does not appear when I press the globe key.
Check Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards and confirm SprintText is in the list. If it is not, add it again. If the list shows it but the globe key does not offer it, restarting the device resolves it — iOS caches the keyboard list more aggressively than you would expect.
My shortcut is not expanding.
Three usual causes. The trigger may be shorter than your minimum trigger length. The shortcut may be disabled. Or you may still be on the system keyboard — expansion only happens while SprintText is the active keyboard, so check the globe key first.
A shortcut fires when I do not want it to.
Press backspace immediately to undo it, then either lengthen the trigger or raise the minimum trigger length. Triggers made of repeated letters or beginning with punctuation misfire far less often.
The keyboard will not appear in a password field.
That is iOS, and it is deliberate. Secure text fields fall back to the system keyboard for every third-party keyboard. There is no setting that changes it, and we would not want one.
Do I have to grant Full Access?
No. Typing, expansion, the suggestion bar and correction all work without it. It is needed for haptic feedback and, when it arrives, sync.
How do I remove SprintText?
Delete the app, and iOS removes the keyboard with it. You can also remove just the keyboard in Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards by swiping on it, and keep the app for managing your library.