Turn On Predictive Text in Windows 10 for Laptop & Hardware Keyboard

Recently, I’ve shown you how to enable spell check on Wordpad and other applications in Windows 10. In this post, let me show you how to turn on predictive text for laptops and hardware keyboards.

In case you are wondering if you are using Windows 10 with the on-screen keyboard, like on two-in-one devices, Windows 10 automatically shows the text suggestions via the software keyboard. For regular laptops and hardware keyboards, you need to manually enable the predictive text. Here’s how.

Jump to:

• Turn on predictive text in laptops and hardware keyboards
  • Enable autocorrect for hardware keyboards
• Turn on predictive text for languages other than English

Enable Predictive Text in Laptops and Hardware Keyboards

To turn on the predictive text in laptop or the hardware keyboards, there is no need to mess with the registry editor or group policy editor. Windows 10 has built-in options to quickly enable the text prediction for hardware keyboards. All you have to do is toggle a single switch and you are good to go. Follow the below steps to turn on text prediction for hardware keyboard in Windows 10.

1. Open the settings app by pressing the keyboard shortcut Win + I. You can also click on the “All Settings” button in the notification center.
2. Once the settings app has been opened, go to the “Devices -> Typing” page.
3. On the right panel, scroll down and find the “Hardware Keyboard” section.
4. Next, toggle the switch under “Show text predictions as I type” to the “On” position.
   
5. The settings are saved automatically.
6. Close the Settings app.
7. From now on, as you type, you will see predictive text appear on top of the current line. To accept the predictive text, click on it.
   

If you ever want to disable predictive text for hardware keyboard simply toggle the switch in step 4 to the “Off” position.

Autocorrect Spelling Error While Typing on Hardware Keyboards

If you want to, you can also configure Windows 10 to show autocorrect or spelling suggestions while typing on the hardware keyboard. It is quite easy to do.

1. First, open the settings and go to “Devices -> Typing” page.
2. Here, find the “Hardware Keyboard” section on the right panel.
3. Under it, toggle the switch under “Autocorrect misspelled words I type” to the “On” position.
   
4. Close the settings app.

That is it. From now on, if there is a spelling error or typo in what you type, Windows 10 will show correct spellings or suggestion on top of the current line.

Click on the correct spelling to replace the misspelled word with the correct one.

Enable Multilingual Text Prediction in Windows 10

By default, Windows 10 only shows predictive text for the English language. If you are multilingual using multiple keyboard languages then you need to enable another option for multilingual text prediction. Do keep in mind that the multilingual predictive text only works if Microsoft is officially supporting your specific language. Thankfully, Microsoft supports almost all major languages.

Related: How to change keyboard language shortcut in Windows 10

1. Open the settings app by searching for it in the start menu or by clicking on the “All Settings” button in the Notification center.
2. In the settings app, go to “Devices -> Typing“.
3. On the right panel, find the “Multilingual Text Suggestions” section.
4. In this section, toggle the switch under “Show text suggestions based on the recognized languages you are typing in” to the “On” position.
   
5. Close the settings app.

If your language is officially supported by Microsoft, you will see text suggestions on top of the current line as you type.

That is all. If you like this article, do check out how to change language from Chinese to English and how to create a Windows 10 backup to a network drive.