Keyboard visible/invisible

On my iPad mini the keyboard is visible, no problems using Pleco. On my iPad Pro the keyboard has suddenly disappeared and I don't know how to bring it back. On the bottom of the screen I see 1 2 3 4 5 hwr voice rad eng. I've tried pressing these keys but it doesn't help. I also deleted and reinstalled Pleco twice, but still no keyboard on the iPad Pro. I went into Settings > General but don't see an option for keyboard, which surprised me because I saw reference to such an option in the manual. Both iPads are at ios version 14.8. I'm at a standstill, hoping for an answer on these forums.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Is your iPad maybe connected to a Bluetooth keyboard? (perhaps inadvertently, e.g. if you have one in a drawer that it accidentally got too close to)
 
You are on to something there. My iPad Pro has a detachable keyboard. I removed the keyboard from the unit and bazoom! The onscreen keyboard came to life. When I reattach the keyboard, the onscreen keyboard disappears. It could be that my detachable keyboard has an issue. My next stop is the local Apple store to have them run diagnostics. Maybe the keyboard has gone bad and I need purchase a new one (it's 5 years old, ancient by modern electronics standards!)
 
Actually the answer is far simpler. I forgot that when the keyboard is attached, you're supposed to use the keyboard, not the onscreen version. I'm so used to using iPad mini and iPhone with onscreen keyboard, that I got confused using the Pro with physical keyboard. In this case the simple explanation escaped me!
 
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