Did you know you can slide to type with the iPad floating keyboard? Just drag your finger from one letter to the next without lifting it, spelling out entire words in one quick motion. Here's how to use QuickPath and the floating keyboard on your iPad.

Why You'll Love This Tip:

Use a smaller keyboard and Slide to Type for faster typing on your iPad.
Move your keyboard to a more convenient location on your display.

How To Swipe Text on an iPad with the Floating Keyboard

System Requirements

While the steps below work on previous software versions, the screenshots shown were captured using iPadOS 18. Find out how to update to the latest version of iPadOS.

The iPad Swipe Keyboard, often called Swipe Text, Swype Keyboard, Slide to Type, or sometimes QuickPath, is available on iPadOS 13 or later. To get Slide to Type working on your iPad, you’ll need to switch to the floating keyboard from the regular on-screen keyboard. For more iPad tips, don't forget to check out our free Tip of the Day.

Note: If slide to type won't work, open the Settings app, then tap General, Keyboards, and make sure that Slide on Floating Keyboard to Type is toggled on.

Open any app that requires typing. For this example, I'll open the Notes app.
Tap anywhere in the body of the note to begin typing, and the keyboard will fill the bottom of your screen. Tap and hold the keyboard icon in the bottom right corner of the keyboard.
A menu will pop up. Unlike many menus in iPadOS, this menu requires that you keep holding your finger on the screen and drag your finger to the menu option you want. Select Floating.
The on-screen keyboard will disappear and be replaced with the swipe to type iPad keyboard. You can move the swipe typing iPad keyboard around the screen by touching and dragging the grab bar at the bottom.
You can compose text with QuickPath, AKA Slide to Type, by touching the first letter of a word and then dragging your finger to the rest of the letters in turn.

Note: If different letter options appear over the letters when you attempt to use the swipe keyboard, try touching and dragging lower on the letter; it's worked for me!

Now, you can go crazy with the iPad swipe keyboard! Just be aware that if your keyboard doesn't recognize the word you want to type, you'll have to go back and correct it manually, so be sure to check your autocorrect settings. To switch from the iPad slide to type or floating keyboard to the regular keyboard, touch the bar at the bottom of the iPad swipe keyboard, and drag it to the bottom of your screen.