With the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, Samsung for the very first time, has adopted a much-loved feature from their Galaxy Note series – the S Pen. You may have just gotten the Galaxy S22 Ultra or are planning to get one. In this video, I’m going to share some S Pen tips and tricks–a couple you may already be familiar with and also new ones as well

Air Gestures

Firstly, if you click and hold down the button on the S Pen, you will launch the camera app. From there you can use the S Pen as a remote to take pictures, or even burst shots if you hold the button down. This is especially useful if you’re alone and need to capture some creative shots at a distance.

Next, if you wave the S Pen in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction, the camera will zoom in or out.

And if you double-click on the button, it will switch to the selfie camera or vice versa. Neat!

Now, you can also use gestures to browse your photo gallery by swiping left and right. Likewise, it can be used to control media: swiping left and right will go to the previous track or skip to the next track. Additionally, swiping up and down controls playback volume.

Handwriting to Text

One awesome S Pen feature is Handwriting to Text. You can toggle this feature in the S Pen settings. When you open up an app, for instance, Google Chrome, you’ll be able to write directly on the browser bar, without typing it out on the keyboard.

You can basically use it on any app with a text box, like WhatsApp. You can now write your messages rather than typing them on the on-screen keyboard. Convenient eh?

A thing to note: Text within apps may be a little cramped, like the one here in WhatsApp. So, what you can do is head over here and click on these three dots and select Handwriting to launch a large handwriting pad. Write as you would normally and it will automatically convert your writing or scribbles into text.

Warn if left behind

Next, here’s another nifty feature. It’s on by default, but just in case, head over to S Pen settings and make sure the “Warn if S Pen is left behind” warning toggle is on. This ensures that you don’t accidentally leave your S Pen behind. If this does happen, your Galaxy S22 Ultra will display a warning message when the screen is off.

Smart Select

S Pen’s bread and butter features are of course writing and drawing. It’s also great as a photo editing tool. If you’re new to the S Pen, you’re going to love this feature. With Smart Select – you can access it via the S Pen Air Command menu here, you can do things like cut out photos, remove backgrounds and superimpose images, and even create GIFs.

Another nifty use case for Smart Select is to capture text from an image and have it converted to actual editable text. For instance, here are some hashtags on an IG post that I want to reuse. I head to Smart Select, click on the square icon, then draw a box over the text that I want, use the Text tool then copy and paste this text. Great huh?

Here’s another cool feature that would be awesome if you love travelling to foreign countries. The S Pen can help you translate text in pictures, either from existing images or photos you capture on camera. For instance, if I take a photo of this Japanese sign then go to the Air Command menu and select Smart Select, I can then hover the S Pen over words and it will instantly translate those words. You can then copy translated text into another document or message.

Finally, did you know that you can customise what happens when you remove the S Pen from the phone? To do this, head over to the S Pen Settings and scroll down to the Removal section. Click on “When S Pen is removed” and you’ll see three options:
Open Air Command, Create note or Do nothing.