This is going to be 20 plus S Pen tips and tricks for beginners and experienced users alike. So please use the time codes and the chapters in the description. So that way you can jump around and find what you’re looking for. Let’s off with number one. And that is a screen off memo screen off memo is probably the first thing you will experience when using the S Pen.
It works by ejecting the S Pen while the screen is off. It uses a true black experience with to gray tones similar to always on display in order to battery. So honestly, I think this is one of the best features that Samsung has ever brought to the Note series even though it is several years old, but it may not be suitable for everyone. Let me show you how to disable it just in Case you’re not feeling it. Jump into the app drawer and do a quick search for screen off memo. Tap on the first option under settings and S Pen.
the top you’ll see the option to toggle on and off screen off memo. Another way you can access. we’re going to be talking about is by ejecting the S Pen and then tapping on the little cog wheel in the bottom left hand corner. Next up is a feature called air actions aka the magic wand mode. Air actions allows you to perform many gestures in front of your note with the S Pen while holding down the S Pen button. different gestures will do different things. For example, the camera app has many useful air action gestures. by holding down the S Pen button in swiping left to right, I can toggle through the many camera modes, swiping in an upward the S Pen button will switch between the front rear-facing cameras. Holding down the same button and doing a little loop D loop to the left or to the right will allow you to zoom in or zoom out.
Probably not the most useful feature out there, but it’s still there in Case you want to mess around with it. A single press of the S Pen button will take a photo or start recording a video and the double press switches between the front-rear cameras well. To do that we need to dive into the SPN main settings, then look for air actions at the very top and tap on it. First you have the ability to toggle it on and off. If you don’t plan on using it at all just toggle it off since then that won’t system resources. So below that we have the S pin connection and battery status. And then below that we have what happens whenever you hold down the S Pen button.
By default, it’s set up to launch the camera app. To change this tap on hold down S Pen button and select the app that you want to launch. This works with third party apps. Under that we have our anywhere actions, can be performed in of app or on screen. This includes phone navigation gestures for back home and resets. There’s smart select and screen right. If you tap on one of these gestures, you can swap the corresponding actions out with each other. bouncing back to the main air Actions menu. Under anywhere actions, you’ll find app actions.
Here you’ll see a list of compatible apps. By tapping on an app you can toggle it on and off, customize the air actions the app. Some apps will have more support than others. the note has a lot more options than Samsung notes. Lastly, below app actions there are App actions. These are for unsupported camera and media apps that you really can’t customize like the above apps. Think of these universal controls for third party apps.
If you’re using the S Pen and the screen turns off, chances are you’ll have to scan your fingerprint or into your pin to get back into your phone. Not it could be a little annoying. let’s dive into the S Pen main settings menu, look for s pin unlock and toggle it on. It’s going to ask you for your pin so just go ahead and enter it. And that’s it.
If your phone screen turns off while you’re using the S Pen the first time it’s going to ask you for your pin or fingerprint and then after that your screen either will not turn off whatsoever
or if it does turn off it will allow you to you know go back into your phone using the S Pen button. There are several different ways you can start creating a note immediately but one in particular you may not be aware of first make sure that create notes with pin button is turned on the main S Pen settings. Now by holding down the S Pen button and double tapping on the display.
It’s going to pull up Samsung notes and a little mini window airview is another really neat feature that can be pretty useful to you when using stock samsung apps or internet browser, you can get a little more functionality by hovering. Let me show you. If you’re in the gallery, you can hover the S Pen over pictures to get a bigger preview of that image. If you hover over and out Boom, you can get a quick breakdown of the images in that album. Another thing I want to show you is in the Samsung internet browser. If you hover the S Pen over the bottom or top of the display, you can scroll up and down. switching over to the app, you can hover over days to get a larger preview of the events that are associated with that day.
So we talked about screen off memo, which happens only when the screen is off and the phone is locked. But if your phone is unlocked and the screen is on, by default, ejecting the SPN opens up Air Command, this can be changed if we dive into the SPN settings and scroll down until we see S Pen is removed. Tap on that. You can change it from Air Command to create note or have it do nothing at all. Speaking of Air Command, when you launch it, you’re going to see several shortcuts on the right hand side. These shortcuts can be moved around and you can add apps to this shortcut menu.
If you want to access some third party apps on the fly, you can quickly organize these shortcuts by opening up Air Command holding down on an app and dragging it to anywhere you want. Additionally, you can drag it to the top to remove it from the shortcut menu. If you want to add an app, you’ll need to dive into the SPN settings. Scroll down until you see shortcuts and tap on that. Inside of here. You can drag and drop apps to the shortcut menu on the right, you can move around apps and change the order by dragging and dropping. Finally, hitting the minus sign will remove the app from that shortcut menu.
Before we get out of the shortcut settings, I want to show. So make sure you’re back on this screen. We’re going to move translate Bixby vision, glance magnify coloring book the SPN Quick Access menu. You do this by holding down each app and moving them over to the shortcut list. You really don’t have to enable these if you don’t want to let me quickly go over what each of them can do. And then you can use the ones that you like. Let’s first start with translate.
Whenever you word or words in a language that is foreign to you go into Air Command in turn on translate, select the written language and then select the language that you need it translated to then hover the S Pen over the text and watch it instantly translate. So translate is pretty cool. I’m not gonna lie, especially if you do a lot of traveling. However, hover over Bixby vision is pretty useful. Bixby vision with the S Pen is pretty powerful. So to turn it on, just dive into the Air Command menu and tap on Bixby vision.
If we take a quick look at the settings you can see it’s capable of translating text, places, objects, animals, and a whole lot more. It can help you find something that you want to purchase or scan a QR code. Okay, so for example, if I go into Instagram and find someone’s photo , hover the S Pen over it, you can see its choices. the image, look up information about the image scan for text, or scan it there’s a QR code present. If I tap on the photo icon, it displays similar images with a little bit more information about each image. Bixby vision can pretty much be used in app. However, sometimes the results may not be what you’re looking for.
it is powerful and really cool. Then there’s glance, let’s say you’re in an app like Spotify and you want to shrink the app down but still be able to access it very quick on the fly. We’ll go into Air Command and tap on glance, it’s going to place the app in a super small window at the bottom of the screen, hovering the S Pen over the app will bring it back up and the S Pen is moved away from the display, it’s going to shrink back down holding down on the app and dragging it to the top where it says remove will close glance. In my opinion, this is a super powerful multitasking tool.
So I definitely suggest that you give it a shot. magnify is another really neat feature. If you’re having a hard time reading really small font or say you want to look closer at an image like this one, go into Air Command and tap on magnify. The S Pen will now work like a magnifying glass. As you hover over the display, the zoom percentage at the top and you can really get in there.
If you struggle with bad vision or say you just like looking at the finer details you’re going to love magnify. Next up we have coloring book. Many people forget that the Note series comes with a built in coloring book. Once you add the shortcut like I showed into Air Command and tap on coloring. There’s quite a few images to choose from with many different ways to personalize and color your image. This is amazing if you have children that really enjoy coloring. Lastly, let’s take a quick look at write on something I rarely use but I know a lot of people that love it.
To use it dive into Air Command and select right. It’s going to pull up. it allows you to use the S pen to write. You can circle events, cross days off Connect events with arrows. y’all get the Point. Back in the day, Samsung made it really easy to composite images together. Many people thought they removed this ability but no it’s just a lot harder. Gets you because it’s a little hidden. The first thing you need to do is find a photo that contains it is you want to remove like this one. Tap on the little pencil icon on the bottom to pull up the editor.
Then select the lasso tool by tapping on the cloud. Draw around this subject you want to extract. More than it’s not going to be perfect. You can use the plus and the minus to add or remove parts of the selection until you get it close you can. Once you’re ended, tap on the check mark. before saving the image, scroll over until you see the portrait tools and tap on that. If you’re extracting a face sometimes you can use the spot fixer to smooth out the composite. Once ended, tap the checkmark and then save the image. Now find the image that you want to be the background like this one. Tap on the pencil icon on the bottom to pull up the editor. swipe over and tap on the sticker tools.
Look for the gallery icon on the far right and select it. you extracted and select that. Move in rotate the image until you get it placed correctly and tap Save. Now tap on the pencil icon again to pull up the editor and go back into the portrait tools. Use the spot fixer with the other tools to try the image together the best that you can. Once you have it looking pretty good to have to check mark. Then to add an ending touch, tap on the three little dots in the top right corner, select style.
It’s not Photoshop quality by means. You can do on the go using your galaxy note 20 Ultra. Another nifty feature that you can use the S Pen for is converting handwriting to text. Let’s start by opening up Air Command and selecting create note. Once in Samsung notes just write you out a love note that even Cupid couldn’t top then tap on the convert text button on the bottom. It’s really small and tough to see but it’s next to the Undo arrow.
As soon you tap on it, it’s going to select your handwriting and converted entirely to text, you could choose to copy it and paste it somewhere else or convert it right in Samsung notes. Before jumping out of Samsung notes. Let me show you one more thing. If you look in the toolbar on the bottom all the way over to the right, you’re going to find an option to auto-fix shapes. If you select and start to draw shapes, it’s going to automatically right them to keep lines clean. I discovered myself, and I thought it was pretty neat. So that’s why I’m sharing it with you. Like I said in a last video, I think I’m going to do a full video on Samsung notes because it’s incredibly powerful. For now, let me show you something that’s really awesome.
If you have ever had to between two apps in order to copy over information from one into the other, you’re going to love pen to screen. Let’s say I was writing up an article and I found some information that I wanted to quickly jot down, I can go into Air Command and tap on smart select, then tap pin to screen which is on the far right. Adjust the box so it gets all of the information you need. And tap pin to screen. Now I can leave that app and open up something like one note and write down the important parts.
This is great for drawing since you can pin an image of your subject to the display. It can be moved around you work. So if it gets in the way, just move it out of the way. It’s a great way to snag a small screenshot from something that you’re watching. Moving on, we have an old school personal favorite of mine and that’s create GIF. I said GIF, not GIF. If you’re watching a video and you see something funny, you can extract a portion create a GIF, set it again, go into Air Command smart select and tap on the Create GIF button. Adjust the quality to your liking and tap record.
Once ended, you can tap on the pencil icon and use the S Pen to doodle on the display if you want or just save it is. Smart select is pretty powerful, right? Well, you can extract text and objects with it. Let’s say you’re on a website and want to extract many images and text. Go into Air Command smart select and use the rectangle lasso or oval tool to select the areas that you want to save. If it’s an image, you can pin to screen or save the image to your gallery. If it’s text, you can extract the text, copy it or share it in of another app. Smart select is super powerful for ideas and thoughts for upcoming projects or if you’re just a digital scrapbooker.
Moving on to the next I have for you and that’s to spice up your text messages with live messages, dive into Air Command and select live messages. You could choose to write on an image in your gallery. Quickly take a photo and use that or use a colored background. I’m going to use a colored background. Once you select your background and tap start drawing you can pick between a few different pens or markers that do different effects. You can change up the color you’re writing in. I’m just going to quickly pick a marker real quick. Adjust the size, then I’ll write in blue. I’m going to write out a little message here. Maybe draw a little face and then tap the play button to preview it.
As you see the marker has this really cool glowing effect in each mark. is a little different. If you’re happy with the way it came out, tap Done. And it’s going to save. And now you can share it on social media or through a text or other messaging client. Speaking of texting with your handwriting, you can do it inside of the Samsung keyboard. Let’s say you’re writing up a message, but you write it out by hand, if you’re using the Samsung keyboard, tap on the three little dots to the right and select handwriting. Now you can write out the message using the S Pen and it’s going to automatically convert it to text for sending. Not the most practical thing in the world.
Don’t get me wrong, but it is fun. Don’t judge me. Since the S Pen is basically like a finger when it comes to interacting with your phone’s display. It would make sense that you can use it for games and you can. Yep, you can use the S Pen for better control when playing games like Fruit Ninja and many others. As long the game has pretty simple controls, it should work fine. I mean, I turned me into a friggin Samurai warrior and Fruit Ninja. The last thing you can do with the S Pen be obvious but beginners overlook that’s signing a document, you’ll need to head over to the Play Store or the galaxy App Store and download a PDF sign and fill up I use Adobe’s but there are there to choose from.
Make sure you get yourself a free one though, there’s really no reason to pay for something like this unless you’re wanting more than just the basics. Anyways, you find yourself in app, you’ll be able to open up PDF documents in the app use the S Pen to sign them. This is one of the biggest benefits in my opinion when it comes to owning a galaxy note and using the S Pen. I love this feature in its coming clutch so many times.
Well Dang. There you are. If you’re seeing this, you made it to the end of the video. Hopefully you’re able to learn a thing or two and now you feel a little more comfortable and efficient with your S Pen. And this is your first time using the S Pen let me know down in the comments. And let me know how you’re liking it.
