Then, it stopped working altogether and line breaks went missing. For instance, the hand making the sign of the horns ASCII art drawing below worked for me in some apps but don't others. Just keep in mind that most ASCII art drawings won't work. You can even try creating your own works of art.
To just show off a few of the things you can do right away, to give you a better idea, see the examples below for the phrase and shortcut that can be used.ĭon't Miss: How to Add Foreign Language Dictionaries to Your iPhoneįor the adventurous who want to get crazy with their newfound keyboard shortcut skills, you can check out the archives of ASCII-Code, AsciiWorld, and a few other good places on the web to find large ASCII drawings you and copy and paste.
More Info: How to Unlock the Secret Emoticon Keyboard on Your iPhone
It's really the simplest way to go but doesn't house every emoticon out there. You could also just use the hidden emoticon keyboard in iOS to find most of everything you'll need. For some more advanced users, Uplist has a good list. If you don't know where to start, Wikipedia has a fantastic selection of emoticons you can copy and paste into a new "Text Replacement." They range from simple Western-style emoticons to Eastern-style kaomoji and "2channel" emoticons (some of which take up multiple lines). To cancel instead, select "Text Replacement" in the top-left corner to go back to your list of saved custom replacements, ASCII or otherwise. Once you're finished, hit "Save" in the top-right corner. Just note that you can't have any spaces in the shortcut. You could also choose a word or two to associate an emoticon or drawing with. Whatever is easiest for you to remember and quick to type out. You could use a few letters, some numbers, any other characters on your keyboard, or a combination of such. Second, Apple has some logic in there that prevents line breaks, but there seems to be some bugs in its implementation, so some multi-line ASCII art will actually work in rare occasions.Īs for the shortcut, that's the trigger you'll type out to expand your phrase. However, if you're using anything that is on multiple lines, it may not work, but your mileage may vary.įirst, you can't insert line breaks directly in the Phrase field, though you can get around that by copy/pasting into the field. The phrase will be the emoticon, kaomoji (Japanese-style emoticons), or ASCII drawing.
Tap the plus icon in the top-right corner, then type in a Phrase and its companion Shortcut. While this obviously isn't an ASCII emoticon, the process for creating these shortcuts is the same regardless. No matter which iPhone you have, you'll see and be able to use this example unless you deleted it. Once you're at the Text Replacement screen, you'll notice that Apple provides an example keyboard shortcut for "On my way!" using "omw" as the trigger. Step 2: Create Your Emoticon Keyboard Shortcuts Just open up the Settings app, hit "General," then tap "Keyboard." Once there, hit "Text Replacement," which is what Apple calls keyboards shortcuts in iOS.
Making shortcuts for advanced emoticons like (>_ is where this is most useful.ĭon't Miss: Use Keyboard Shortcuts to Type Long Words & Phrases Faster on Your iPhone Step 1: Navigate to 'Text Replacement'Ĭreating a keyboard shortcut for your favorite ASCII emoticons and art is simple enough. Now, I'm not talking about emoticons like :) and :( because those are pretty easy to remember and type out. Keyboard shortcuts can drastically cut down the time you spend typing redundant phrases, email addresses, and other big-character items, and they can also be used to type out emoticons and ASCII art faster. Whether you want to share elaborate ASCII art with friends, show of your kaomoji skills, or just highlight your emotions better in texts and other messaging platforms using text-based cyber communications, keyboard shortcuts is the way to go. Unfortunately, emoticons can be hard to type out, easy to forget, and ASCII art, in general, can be pretty time-consuming to create from scratch - but there's an easy way to forgo all these issues - make keyboard shortcuts. That's where emoticons come into play, emoji's older typographical sibling. Sure, emojis are all the rage, but there's not an emoji for every emotion or feeling just yet.