#iPhone #Tip, I like using emoji's, but its so time consuming using Voiceover, because you have to switch keyboards, type out what your looking for, then swipe through the results to find what you are looking for. Well, no more of that process for me! I decided to use keyboard shortcuts located in settings, to make it a lot easier! With keyboard shortcuts, you can assign a group of letters to stand for whatever you want so you don't have to type it in, like an email address, your actual address, and yes, emoji's. The only thing is to make the group of letters something that is not an actual word or abbreviation. For example, I started all of my emoji shortcuts with the letters, e j. So my letters to enter a winking face is, e j w f. Let keyboard shortcuts make your life a little easier! #emoji #keyboard #shortcuts #VoiceOver #easier #blind
@ChrisChaffin I wish those shortcuts would work with braille screen input. That'd be amazing and would allow for easy emoji while typing braille.
@jcsteh You can use them with Braille Screen Input, 
! That is how I type on my iPhone. 
@ChrisChaffin I didn't think it worked with contracted braille screen input, but maybe it does? Do you use contracted? I guess i could always temporarily switch to uncontracted for emoji, which would still be easier than switching keyboards and all that.
@jcsteh It does work just fine with contracted BSI. That is what I am using. You can just not use a Braille contraction as a shortcut. I put the letters e j at the beginning of all of my shortcuts. I know someone else that uses numbers. It is up to you to determine what system you want to use.
@ChrisChaffin Weird. I have some shortcuts defined and none of them will work with either contracted or uncontracted braille screen input. Are these the shortcuts under Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Text replacement or is there something somewhere else I'm missing?
@ChrisChaffin Oh bizarre. So shortcuts I defined years ago don't work with braille screen input, but I just defined some new ones and those work just fine. I don't get it, but I'll take it.
@jcsteh Just delete the old ones and just redo them.
@jcsteh That is the right place. If these are old ones, maybe you need to redo them, but if you just did them, I am not sure why they are not working. Just to test, do they work if you typed them out on the regular on screen keyboard?
@ChrisChaffin oh hay this is hella clever
Superdave! 
@wx1g@4bear.com@ChrisChaffin Well, this is cool! On my iPhone, I use emojis sparingly, for the reasons you cite. Where would I define these shortcuts, and how would I activate them while composing text? Or, is this on the Mac? Would I use emojis more if I were to set up the shortcuts? Probably not, but, one never knows. After all, I don't know what most of them mean or when they're appropriate.
@wx1g You have to add each shortcut yourself. Here is what you would do.
1, Go to settings / General / Keyboard.
2, Choose keyboard shortcuts.
3, Here you will see a list of any shortcuts that you might have, and where you add new ones.
4, Find and choose the add button.
5, In the first edit field, your word or phrase, this is where you put your email address, emoji, or whatever you want.
6, In the second edit box, this is where you put your shortcut group of letters. Do not know if there is a mininum, but I always use 3 letters or more myself. Again, make sure you do not use any letters that form an actual word or abbreviation.
7, After that entered, just hit the add button to add it to your list of shortcuts.
8, For another one, just hit the add button to start the process again.
Sorry, do not have a mac, so do not know how to do it there.
Superdave! @wx1g@4bear.com@ChrisChaffin Thank you! Once I've added a shortcut, how do I use it?
@wx1g Whenever you are in an edit field where you want to put an emoji, you just type the shortcut , and when you do a space, the letters you type will disappear and the emoji will take its place. Like, if I type the letters, e j g g, and do a space, this will appear,