How To Use a Bluetooth Keyboard on an iPad

The Apple iPad is a thin, handy tablet with a big screen and a lot of apps. With these apps it can do amazing things, and the list just keeps growing. In fact, Apple has created an iPad version of its office suite, iWork, just for the device. The word processing app, Pages, is a surprisingly capable tool.

In fact, the quality of the word processing apps are so good that you may find yourself doing many documents on the device. However, a professional wordsmith may soon find themselves wishing for a real physical keyboard. Luckily, Apple has included full support for a Bluetooth keyboard in the iPad.

Getting the iPad to communicate with an external keyboard is actually a simple process. We will go through the steps of setting up a keyboard here, and your keyboard will no doubt be very similar in its connection process.

1. Turn on Bluetooth on the iPad

Firsts things first, before you can get a Bluetooth keyboard to pair with an iPad, the iPad Bluetooth radio must be on. To do this, go to settings/general and there you will find a Bluetooth option, which by default is off. Turn it on, and immediately the iPad will start searching for Bluetooth items to pair with.

2. Turn on the Bluetooth keyboard in pairing mode

Once you have Bluetooth on the iPad active and scanning, turn on the Bluetooth keyboard and activate its pairing mode. This will vary by keyboard (for example, on our Think Outside folding Bluetooth keyboard you press the control and both function keys at the same time), but it should be easy to find.

3. Select the device on the iPad

Once you have both devices on and the keyboard discoverable, you should find it listed as an available device marked “Not Paired”. Select the keyboard, and you will be prompted with a dialog asking you to verify the device with a code.

4. Verify the code to pair

Now all you have to do is to enter the code listed with the keyboard. Once this is done the devices are paired, and in future sessions you should be able to just open the keyboard (or on some models just start typing) and you will be connected. If for some reason you cannot connect, delete the device and repeat the process.

5. Using a physical keyboard on the iPad

Once you connect a physical keyboard to an iPad, you will notice a few changes. For one, the on-screen keyboard no longer pops up on the screen when you enter a text field. The iPad keeps it out of your way, and lets you use your external keyboard unhindered.

Other things to note are that the tab key does actually work, great for you outline freaks (myself included) who like to use tabs to format the page. Another thing to note is that the keyboard copy and paste uses the command key, not the control key. This is no doubt expected, but a lot of iPad owners have Windows machines so it bears mentioning.

It really is a simple process to connect an iPad to a Bluetooth keyboard. I do wish that the iPhone supported such a device, but at this time it does not, nor do I expect it to do so any time soon. At least the iPad does, and with the rather competent available apps for it I am confident that the combination of Bluetooth keyboard and iPad would prove to be a very valuable combination for many writing tasks.