We don’t think about it much, but having a good keyboard on your phone or tablet is an essential part of the Android experience. Without great typing, the interactions would become an absolute nightmare. And while there are some great options out there, Gboard is the one many people stick with because it offers one of the best typing experiences available.
Although Google could just keep it as it is, it has added a number of updates over the years to improve the user experience. One small update that had a pretty huge impact was the ability to adjust the font size of the keyboard independently of the phone’s settings. And while it was limited in release just a month ago, we’re now finally seeing it roll out more widely with the latest release of Gboard on the Google Play Store (via 9to5Google).
Independent adjustments for all
If you’re not really aware of what’s going on here, the font setting for your phone used to be tied across most areas of the device. So, whatever changes you made in the settings menu, that same setting would be applied to your keyboard as well. Now, for most people, this really isn’t a huge issue, but if you’re someone that likes to really tweak things, it did cause some problems.
For example, if you’re someone that wants to set their font to something minuscule or extra large on the keyboard, this would apply to all areas of the phone, which could leave a bit of a visual mess. With this new change, you’ll be able to head into the Settings menu for Gboard, dive into the Preferences section, and navigate to the Font size to make any necessary changes.
You’ll be able to use the slider in order to change the font size of the keyboard to your liking. As reported previously, the font size can be adjusted in 15% increments starting at 85%, which will continue until the 130% mark. After that, the slider will jump from 150% to 180%, and finally to 200%.
Just as a heads-up, the emoji key will not change when the adjustments are made, but everything else will. And just like what we saw in the beta, there isn’t a preview of the font size changes being made. So you’ll have to just give it a try and see whether you like it or not. If you’ve never given Gboard a try, now’s going to be a good time.
