Edit a board

You made a board and something's off — a wrong label, a picture that doesn't match, tiles in the wrong order. The board editor gives you a few focused tabs and an Add button that let you fix anything quickly.

What you'll need

• A SpeakAnyWay account (free works)
• A board you've already created or saved

The board editor header

When you open a board, the header has four tabs:

• Tiles — tap any tile to edit its label, picture, audio, or colors. This is where you'll spend most of your time.
• Arrange — drag tiles to move them around the board. Drag the corner grip to resize. You'll also find the columns and spacing controls here.
• Select — click tiles (or drag across the board) to select a group, then change their colors, visibility, or remove them all at once.
• Settings — board name, category, voice, column counts, and sharing options.

Alongside the tabs you'll see a few buttons: Speak (open the talking view), Add (add new tiles — see "Add tiles" below), Clone, and Save. The Save button turns green with an amber dot when you have unsaved layout changes.

The ⋯ (More board actions) menu holds the rest: Manage words (the full word list and layout tools — this is where the old "Words" tab lives now), Auto-arrange tiles, Re-sort word colors, Reset all tile colors, Download PDF, Assign to communicator, and Delete board.

Edit a tile

1. Make sure you're on the Tiles tab.
2. Tap the tile you want to change — its editor opens right away (no menu to click through).
3. You'll see tabs for Appearance, Image, and Audio.

On the Appearance tab you'll find:

• Display label — the text printed on the tile. Change this to whatever you want the tile to show.
• Spoken word — what the voice says when the tile is tapped. This is set when the tile is created and can't be edited directly. To change it, add a new tile with the word you want (see "Add tiles" below).
• Part of speech — helps with word suggestions and color-coding.
• Background and text colors, plus toggles for hiding the tile, hiding its label, or making it silent.

Tap Save changes when you're done.

Swap a picture

1. Tap the tile on the Tiles tab to open its editor.
2. Go to the Image tab. You'll see two sub-tabs:
   • Pick from library — search Open Symbols or Google Images for a matching picture.
   • Make new image — three options here:
     • Generate a new image — describe what you want and SpeakAnyWay creates it.
     • Edit this image — tweak an existing image (change colors, add details).
     • Upload your own image — choose a photo from your device.
3. Pick the picture you want and tap Save changes.

Real photos almost always work better than generic symbols for the things your communicator actually cares about — their pet, their toys, the people in their life. Don't feel locked into the symbol library.

Add tiles

1. Tap Add in the header.
2. Type the words you want, separated by commas — SpeakAnyWay generates a tile for each one with a matching image and voice.
3. Want help picking words? Use Word suggestions: choose how many, optionally describe a scenario or topic, and tap Get suggestions.

You can also upload a photo directly as a new tile from the same Add panel. To work with the full word list, open ⋯ → Manage words.

Remove tiles

1. Switch to the Select tab.
2. Click the tiles you want to remove (or drag across the board to select a group).
3. In the Edit selected panel that appears, tap Remove from board.

Rearrange tiles

1. Switch to the Arrange tab.
2. Drag any tile to move it. Drag the corner grip on a tile to resize it.
3. Use the controls in the toolbar to adjust columns, spacing, and layout options.
4. Tap Save in the header when you're happy with the layout. (An amber dot appears on the Save button when you have unsaved changes.)

Order matters more than it looks — communicators learn tile positions. If you rearrange a board they already know well, give them a heads-up and a day or two to relearn.

Bulk-edit tiles

The Select tab lets you change several tiles at once:

1. Click tiles to select them (a ring appears around each one), or drag across the board to select a group. Use Select all to grab everything.
2. Drag any selected tile to move the whole group, or drag its corner grip to resize the whole group. Layout changes need a Save.
3. The Edit selected panel shows options for background color, text color, border, and visibility.
4. Tap Apply to N tiles to save your changes.

This is handy for color-coding categories — select all the food tiles, pick a color, apply.

The three visibility toggles

They sound alike and do different things:

• Hide tiles takes the whole tile off the board. It disappears from the communicator's view entirely — picture, word, and all. Nothing is deleted, so you can bring tiles back at any time.
• Hide pictures keeps the tile and its word, and only turns off the picture. Use it for letter, number, and keyboard boards, where a symbol beside the letter is just noise. The tile still speaks when tapped, and turning the toggle back off puts the picture back. This carries through to printed boards and PDF exports, so a keyboard board prints the way it looks on screen.
• Hide labels keeps the picture and turns off the word underneath it.

Hidden tiles stay visible to you in the editor — dimmed, with a small crossed-out-eye marker in the corner — so you can select them and turn them back on. Select them as you would any other tile, switch Hide tiles off, and apply.

What to expect

• Tile edits (labels, pictures, audio) save per-tile when you tap Save changes in the tile editor.
• Layout changes (rearranging, resizing, columns) need an explicit Save in the header — look for the amber dot.
• If the board is assigned to a communicator and shared via MySpeak, anyone using the link sees the updated version next time they load the page.
• You can edit any board you created. You can't edit public boards directly — clone them first using Clone & customize on the public board page.
• Generated pictures aren't perfect. If the result doesn't match what you meant, try a more specific description ("a red striped pajama shirt" beats "pajamas").

Common questions

• Will the voice say something different than what's on the tile? It can. The Display label is what your communicator sees; the Spoken word is what gets said. They can differ (e.g., display label "apple," spoken word "snack"). If you upload custom audio, that plays instead of the spoken word.
• Can I undo an edit? There's no undo button yet — if you made a mistake, just edit the tile again. For layout changes, close the page without saving to discard. For bigger problems (a whole board you want to roll back), email support.
• Will my changes affect other people using this board? Only if they're using your board through a MySpeak link or as a clone. Public board originals aren't affected by your edits.
• My picture upload won't work. Files have to be under 5MB and in JPG, PNG, or HEIC format. If it's bigger, screenshot it first to shrink it.