Blackberry Handheld 7200 Tips and Tricks
Handheld Tips and Tricks
Very usefull and intersting Tips and Tricks of Blackberry Handheld Cellular phone
Blackberry Handheld 7200 Tips and Tricks
Handheld
Tips and Tricks
Check boxes
To select a check box, press the Space key. To clear the check box, press the Space key
again.
Option fields
A shortcut to changing a value in an option field is to
highlight the field and press the Alt key. The full list of options will display. Highlight the option choice and select it.
Lists and Menus
A quick way to pull up an item that is deep in a list or
menu is to press the first letter of the item and then scroll from there.
Scrolling
On some screens the trackwheel
will scroll vertically. To scroll
horizontally, press Alt and scroll.
On screens where the trackwheel
scrolls horizontally, press Alt and scroll to move vertically.
Selecting items/text
Pressing Shift and scrolling simultaneously will
select multiple items/text horizontally.
Pressing Shift once, then scrolling will select items/text a row
at a time.
Copy and Paste
Once text or items are selected, clicking the trackwheel will reveal a menu with Cut
and Copy as options. Pressing Alt
and clicking the trackwheel will
also copy selected text or items.
Pressing the Shift and backspace keys together will also Cut
selected text or items. To Paste
copied text or items, place the cursor in the desired spot, and click the trackwheel and select Paste. Pressing Shift and clicking the trackwheel at the same time will also Paste
any copied text.
Page Up and Page Down
Pressing the Alt key while scrolling in a list will
advance the list by a full screen.
Pressing the Space key will also advance the list by a
screen. Pressing the Shift key
and Space key will scroll up one screen.
Top and Bottom of page
On many screens, pressing T will take you to the top
of a page, pressing B will take you to the bottom of the page.
Next and Previous
To move to the next item in a list, press N. To move to the previous item in a list, press
P.
Typing shortcuts
Capitalize
Pressing Shift key and the letter will enter it
capitalized. Pressing the letter alone,
and holding it, will also capitalize it.
Period
Pressing Alt M will enter a period. Pressing the Space key twice will
enter a period followed by two spaces.
Special and Accented characters
Pressing the letter and scrolling at the same time will
browse through the available characters for that key.
Numbers
Pressing Alt and the number is the default way to
enter a number. If a field only accepts
numbers, such as a phone number field, you do not need to press the Alt
to enter numbers. If you need to enter a
letter in a field that defaults to numbers, press and hold the letter key until
the letter shows.
An example would be:
The local pizza shop advertises their number as 1-555-PIZZA2GO. If you store the phone number just as it is
shown, the BlackBerry will translate the letters into the correct numbers when
it dials.
Press the Right Shift (CAP) key then the Alt
key simultaneously will turn on NUM Lock.
Pressing Right Shift will disengage it.
E-Mail Address fields
When entering an e-mail address in an e-mail address field,
you do not need to type the special characters @ and period. Simply press Space for each of these
characters. The first Space will
be converted to @ and the second Space will be converted to a
period. If the e-mail address has a
period prior to the @ symbol, you will have to type the first period
manually. The BlackBerry will handle the
conversion for the rest of the e-mail address.
Home
Screen
Move Icon or Hide Icon
To see these options, hold the Alt key (crescent moon
key) and click trackwheel. These options let you customize the number of
icons, and their order on the Home Screen.
Application Switcher
To quickly toggle between open applications, press the Alt
key and the Escape button at the same time. A “ribbon” of open applications will appear. Continue to press the Alt key and
scroll to the application you wish.
Releasing the Alt key will select the highlighted application.
Shortcut keys
Many applications have a single key shortcut to open that
application. The shortcut key is underlined
when the application is highlighted.
If Dial from Home Screen is activated, the shortcut
keys will not work. See Phone/Options/General
Options/Dial from Home Screen to check and/or change this setting.
Messages
Message List shortcuts
These shortcuts apply to the Message List
screen. See Message Screen for shortcuts
within an open message.
Compose – C
Reply – R
Reply to all - L
Forward - F
File - I
Next Unopened message - U
Next Day - N
Previous Day - P
Mark Opened – Alt U
Mark Unopened – Alt U
Views
To view only specific message types, you can use the search
tool in the menu to select the criteria for the messages you wish to view. The BlackBerry has some built in shortcuts to
make this process easier for many message types.
Sent Messages – Alt O (Outbound)
Received Messages – Alt I (Inbound)
Text Messages – Alt S (Short Message Service)
Phone Call logs – Alt P (Phone)
Voice Mail Messages – Alt V (Voice Mail)
Message Screen
These shortcuts apply when an open message is displayed on
the screen.
Reply – R
Reply to all - L
Forward - F
File – I
Page Down – Space or Enter
Page Up - Alt Space or Alt Enter
Mark Opened – Alt U
Mark Unopened – Alt U
Search within a message - S
To search for text within a message, press the S key. Pressing S again will search for the
next occurrence. To search for a
different string you will need to click the trackwheel and select Search.
Next Item - N
Previous Item – P
Top of message – T
Bottom of message – B
Show Address and Show Name
You can toggle between the “friendly name” and e-mail
addresses of senders and recipients by highlighting the name or address and
pressing Q.
PIN Messages
RIM allows BlackBerries of all flavors to send and receive
text messages up to 5,000 characters to and from any other
Attachments (This feature requirers a BlackBerry
Once an attachment is opened, click in on the trackwheel. You will find several options that will make
your attachment viewing easier and more productive. The tips and tricks shown here can be done
without opening this menu.
Find within an attachment
To Find a string of text within an attachment, press
the F key. Pressing F
again will Find the next occurrence.
To Find a different string you will need to click the trackwheel
and select Find.
Excel
Change Column Width
There are 2 ways to change the width of a column. If the cursor is in the column header, simply
clicking the trackwheel will present
a menu of column widths to choose from.
If the cursor is anywhere in the desired column, pressing W
repeatedly will scroll through the various widths available.
Go to specific cell
Press G to select a specific cell to go to.
Display cell content
To display
the full content of a selected cell, simply press the Space key.
Delete Prior
Highlight a date with the trackwheel, Delete Prior will appear as a menu option. This will delete all messages (sent and
received), text messages, pin messages and call logs prior to the highlighted
date. This is a great way to delete
several messages at one time.
! Be
aware that messages deleted with this method will not be deleted from the
user’s desktop computer or e-mail server.
Reconcile Now
Available when a message status has changed, but has not
reconciled with the e-mail server. BlackBerry
Internet Service and a BlackBerry Enterprise Server reconcile with the handheld
every 15 minutes. This menu option allows the user to force the e-mail server,
or BlackBerry Internet Service to wirelessly synchronize message status (read,
moved, deleted, etc.).
Options
There are several options that can be set with this menu
option. Most of them are pretty
obvious. Here are two that are not.
Auto More
The BlackBerry downloads the first 2 K of an e-mail. If the e-mail is longer than 2 K, the
BlackBerry will create a menu option labeled More. Selecting More will download the next
3 K of the message. If there is more
than 3 K, but less than 5 K remaining to be downloaded, you will also see a More
All menu choice. More All will
download all of the remaining message content.
Checking Auto More causes the BlackBerry to automatically
retrieve the next 3K of the message when you scroll to the last available line
of the message.
Purge Deleted Items
When a message is deleted on a BlackBerry, it is merely
moved to a Deleted Items folder. The
message will disappear from the inbox, but it is still taking up space on the
device and in the e-mail server. In
order to completely remove the deleted message, you must purge the deleted
item(s). When you have the Messages/Options
screen open, click the trackwheel in
one time to bring up the next menu. If
you have deleted items that have not been purged, you should see a Purge
Deleted Items option. Click the trackwheel again to purge the deleted
message(s).
! BlackBerry
Internet Service (BIS) users should be aware that this function will purge
items off of the BIS server, but not off of the user’s desktop or e-mail
server. This is a very good tool for
keeping the BIS storage below the 10 or 25 MB limit without having to log onto BIS
web site from a computer.
Phone
Speed Dial
From the Home Screen, simply press and hold a letter
key. You will be asked if you want to
assign a Speed Dial to that key.
Selecting Yes will open your Address Book. Select the contact you wish to add to Speed
Dial. If the contact has multiple
phone numbers, you will prompted to select the phone number you want assigned.
Once a Speed Dial has been created, pressing and
holding that key at the Home Screen will immediately dial the number
without any further prompting.
If Dial from Home Screen is activated, the shortcut
keys will not work. See Phone/Options/General
Options/Dial from Home Screen to check and/or change this setting.
Mute
Press the Phone button (on top of the
Options
Call Logging
Some users like to track every communication event in the Message
list, others prefer the Message list to show only e-mail. This menu option allows you to tag which
phone related events you want to log in the Message list.
General Options
Auto Hang-up:
The BlackBerry can be set to automatically hang-up when it
is inserted into the holster.
Sort By:
The recent calls list on the Phone screen can be
sorted by Most Recent, Most Used or Name. That sort order is selected here.
Dial from Home Screen:
When Yes is selected for this menu option, simply
pressing a number key will open the dialer.
If No is selected, pressing the Space key from the Home
Screen will open the dialer.
This setting will impact application shortcuts. If this is set to Yes, Home Screen
shortcuts will be disabled.
Call Logging
This menu is where you choose which, if any, calls you want
to log in the messages application. Your
choices are Missed Calls, All Calls, All Calls No
Smart Dialing
To access office extensions within my corporation,
These settings allow the BlackBerry to dial an extension by
dialing X in place of the PBX routing number.
In order to call extension 123, dial x123. The BlackBerry will dial the PBX system and
then enter the extension desired.
Call:
Many PBX systems will have a number that immediately prompts
for the extension you are trying to reach.
Enter that phone here.
Wait For:
Measure the amount of time that passes from when the above
number answers the call to when you can enter the extension you are trying to
reach. On many systems you can begin
dialing the extension before the operator asks you to. Try this before setting this field. This field has 2, 4, and 6
seconds for options.
Extension Length:
Enter the
number of numbers in the extension.
Address
Book
SIM Phone Book (T-Mobile and Cingular only)
The SIM Phone Book is accessible from this menu option. Once loaded, you can create (New), Edit,
Delete, Call, Copy and Add To Address Book,
contacts that are on your SIM card.
Options
Here you can set the Address Book to sort on First
Name, Last Name, or Company.
Searching
To find a contact, you can type the name (first, middle
and/or last), company name or any combination of text strings separated by
spaces. Notice that as you type in the
search string, your list of contacts narrows to contacts that match the search
string.
To find Mark E. Jenkins at Select Communications, you could
type “Mar J Select”. If I don’t know
that Mark ends his name with a K instead of a C (Marc), typing Mar searches out
all words starting with Mar in the Name or Company fields. The same is true for J and Select.
Options
Auto On/Off
This feature has the BlackBerry shut off for a period of
time in order to save battery life.
While the BlackBerry is shut off in this way, message notification is
shut off, phone calls are routed to voicemail, and the display is shut
down. The alarm clock can be set to go
off while the BlackBerry is shut off.
There are settings for Weekday On, Weekday Off, Weekend
On, and Weekend Off.
AutoText
AutoText simply replaces one string of characters with a
different string of characters that are pre-programmed in the BlackBerry or
added by the user. An example of this is
“MN”. By default, the BlackBerry is set
up to replace the string “MN” with “minute”.
For most users who will read this document, “MN” is more frequently used
in place of “
Spell checking, Capitalization and Punctuation:
Many commonly misspelled words are already entered into this
feature. If you type “field”, AutoText
will automatically replace that with “field”.
It can force capitalization for words that require it within a sentence,
or force lower case for words that should never be capitalized. An example would be “Yesterday i
I learned what WWW www stood for in an internet Internet
address”. It can also be set to correct
missed contractions and other punctuation mistakes. “Heres Here’s Marks
Mark’s example.” Remember that this only
applies to words that are entered in the list.
If you encounter a misspelling or mistype that you commit often, you can
add it and other entries to the list.
Signatures:
A short string such as “mysig” can be set to be replaced
with an elaborate e-mail signature.
Data Entry Shortcuts:
There are a number of shortcuts for commonly used data that
can be unique to the person writing a message, or the time it is being written. Here are a number of the preconfigured
shortcuts:
br = ( (bracket)
rb = ) (right
bracket)
ld = Sun, May 30, 2004 (local
date)
lt = 10:22:04 AM (local
time)
mynumber = 19522010143 (this
BlackBerry’s phone number)
mypin = pin:200b02b1 (this
BlackBerry’s PIN)
myver = 7230/3.7.0.36 (this
BlackBerry’s software version)
mydcid = 104*16631*24 (this
BlackBerry’s Direct Connect ID (Nextel Only))
usrid = Mark Jenkins (Name
from Owner information screen)
sig = Select Communications
+1 (763)
744-0090 (Information from
Owner information screen)
Date/Time
Pulling up the menu on this screen allows you to set the
clock based on the time recorded in the carrier’s network. Since this time is based on an atomic clock,
its accuracy is about as good as it gets.
Owner
Enter your name and contact information in this area. When the keypad is locked, or the standby
screen is active, this information will be displayed on the screen. This makes it easy for someone to return the
BlackBerry if it is lost.
! There
is a common mistake made in this section you should avoid. Many people put their wireless phone number
here because it is the number they can be reached at most often. If this BlackBerry is also your wireless
phone, the finder will not only call the device they are holding, they will
probably access your voicemail box in the process. (Calling your wireless phone number from your
wireless device is a common way to access your own voicemail.) Be sure to enter the phone number you can be
reached at when you do not have your BlackBerry with you.
Status
This screen shows the Signal Strength in decibels, Battery
Life as a percentage, memory space available, PIN and IMEI. If you highlight the PIN number, you can
click the trackwheel and copy the
number into memory so you can paste it in another application such as e-mail.
Signal strength is better as the numbers get larger. Since the numbers are all negative, it is
-important to note that -90 is bigger/better than -110. Readings between -90 and -50 are best. Readings between -110 and -90 indicate
marginal signal strength. Most networks
will not even connect to the device if the signal strength is below -110.
Security
RIM ensures the utmost security for your information as it
travels to and from your
Calendar
These tips do not work in Day view if Enable Quick
Entry is set to Yes in Calendar/Options.