Android Authority Writer Replaces Four Third-Party Apps With Built-In Gboard Tools

The writer said he previously opened the Google Translate app, typed a message in English, copied the result and pasted it into a messaging app whenever he needed to write to family in his native language. That workflow, he wrote, was workable for occasional messages but awkward for quick back-and-forth conversations. Gboard's built-in translation tool removes the app switching: the user opens the chat app, taps the square feature-menu icon at the top-left of the Gboard toolbar, selects Translate, chooses input and output languages, and types into the field labeled "Type here to translate." The translated text then appears in the input field ready to be sent.

For text that was typed in the wrong capitalization, the writer described a shortcut that replaces apps such as Convert Case. After selecting a word or a group of words, tapping the Shift key once changes the selection to sentence case, a second tap converts it to all capitals, and a third tap returns it to lowercase.

Gboard's clipboard function replaced third-party clipboard managers such as ClipBoard, according to the account. The feature retains multiple copied items and allows favorites to be pinned, and because it lives in the keyboard, pasted material is reachable from within other apps. It is not enabled by default. Users must open the keyboard, tap the gear icon for settings, scroll down, select Clipboard and switch on the desired options. Copied text or images then appear in the suggestion bar above the keyboard, or can be viewed in full by tapping the clipboard icon in the suggestion strip. Gboard automatically deletes copied items after an hour; holding an item and selecting Pin keeps it until the user unpins or deletes it manually.

The personal dictionary took the place of the Texpand app, which the writer had used to create shortcuts for frequently typed snippets such as his address. He wrote that Texpand sometimes failed to expand a shortcut after he typed it, and that he switched to Gboard's equivalent because it worked more reliably. The dictionary is set up from Gboard's settings, where the user taps the gear icon at the top of the keyboard, chooses Dictionary, selects the dictionary for their language and taps the plus icon.

The article is a first-person account of one user's setup rather than a feature announcement from Google, and the described behavior reflects Gboard as the writer used it. The main practical limit noted is the clipboard's one-hour retention window, which requires pinning copied items that need to be kept longer.