Edit a board

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

More short walkthroughs are in the video library.

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, image, 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 to select a group, then change their colors, visibility, or remove them all at once.
• Settings — board name, category, voice, column counts, sharing options, and the font and size of the words on tiles.

Alongside the tabs you'll see a few buttons: Speak (open the talking view), Add tiles (see "Add tiles" below), and Copy. On the Arrange tab a green Save button joins them; an amber dot on it means 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, Print… (every way to print the board or its set; see Print a board), Export board…, Assign to communicator, and Delete board….

Assign to communicator puts this board itself on a communicator's dashboard — it isn't copied, so later edits show up there too. That includes edits by the board's owner when it isn't yours, like a board from the public library. To get a version only you control, use Copy first and assign the copy.

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, Link, Audio, and Video.

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.
• Tile color and Text color.
• Image & label strip (tap to open):
  • Image size — make the image bigger or smaller inside the tile. Going above 100% trims the empty space around an image, which helps text images stay readable on boards that don't scroll. The edges of the image may get cut off.
  • Word strip color and Word strip opacity — the color of the strip behind the word, and how see-through it is. Until you pick a color, the strip uses the tile's color.
• Word (tap to open) — Word font and Word size for this tile's word. Leave them on Board default to use the board's choice (see "Change the font and size of the words" below).
• Border (tap to open) — border color, width, and corner radius.
• Display options — toggles for hiding the tile, hiding its label, or making it silent.

Tap Save changes when you're done.

Change the font and size of the words

The word under each image shrinks to fit its tile, and a longer phrase wraps onto two lines, so long words show in full instead of getting cut off. Only a very long word on a very small tile still ends in "…". You can also pick the font and size yourself.

For the whole board:

1. Open the Settings tab and tap Grid & Appearance to open it.
2. Under Words on tiles, pick a font and a size: S, M, L, or XL. Standard keeps the app's usual font. The example tile next to it shows how the words will look.
3. Tap Save in the header. If this board opens other boards through its folder tiles, you'll be asked whether to change those boards too.

For one tile: open the tile, then in the Word section pick a Word font or Word size. Tap Board default to go back to the board's choice.

The fonts are chosen to be easy to read. Atkinson Hyperlegible was designed for people with low vision. Printed boards and PDFs use the same font and size.

Soft tile borders

New boards give each tile a soft border in a deeper shade of its own color. To turn it on or off for a board, open the Settings tab, tap Grid & Appearance, and flip Soft tile borders, then tap Save.

• On gives every tile the soft border, even tiles whose border you changed. Use it to get the soft borders back after editing tiles, or to add them to an older board.
• Off removes the soft borders. Any border you picked yourself stays.

If this board opens other boards through its folder tiles, you'll be asked whether to change those boards too.

Swap an image

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 image.
   • 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 image 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 tiles 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 tiles 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.
3. In the action bar above the board, tap Remove. (On a phone, the actions are at the top of the panel that slides up.)

Rearrange tiles

1. Switch to the Arrange tab.
2. Drag any tile to move it, or drop it on another tile to swap the two. Drag the corner grip on a tile to resize it.
3. Use the controls in the toolbar to adjust columns, spacing, and layout options. Fit board (the default) shrinks the board so every tile is on screen while you arrange it. Switch to Actual size to see tiles at full size.
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). 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 Style panel shows options for tile color, text color, image size, word strip, word font and size, border, and what to show or hide. Anything you don't change stays as each tile already has it.
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.

One-tap actions

The action bar above the board works on the selected tiles right away, separately from the Style panel. Each button has a short line under it saying what it does:

• Copy style — select one tile, tap it, then select the tiles to change and tap Paste style. Colors, border, word strip, word font and size, image size, and hide-label all come along.
• Word images — replaces each tile's image with its own word, in a font and size you choose.
• AI images — draw fresh images, or edit the ones the tiles already have with your own instructions. The dialog shows what it will cost in credits before anything is sent.
• Default images — puts back the standard image for each tile's word.
• Group into board — select two or more tiles, then type a name (like "Toppings"). The tiles move to a new board with that name, keeping their colors, sounds and links, and one tile with the name takes the first tile's spot (and its colors and border) and opens it. The new board uses the same number of columns. Tick Add a back button if you want one on the new board. Save any layout changes first.
• Remove — takes the tiles off the board.

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 — image, word, and all. Nothing is deleted, so you can bring tiles back at any time.
• Hide images keeps the tile and its word, and only turns off the image. 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 image 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 image 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, images, 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 images 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 record or upload your own audio on the tile's Audio tab, that plays instead. Tap Use the board's voice to switch back.
• Can I undo an edit? There's no undo button. Unsaved layout changes go away if you leave without tapping Save. A tile's recording can be switched back with Use the board's voice, and hidden tiles or images can be turned back on. Tile edits save when you tap Save changes, so fix a mistake by editing the tile again.
• I changed the voice or background. Do the boards it opens change too? You choose. When the board opens other boards through its folder tiles, saving a change to the voice, language, background, colors, word font and size, or behavior settings asks whether to apply it to those boards too, or just this one. Only boards you own are changed. A new voice can take a minute to reach every tile.
• Will my changes affect other people using this board? Yes, if they're using this board. Communicators it's assigned to, your team, and anyone with its MySpeak or public link see your changes the next time it loads. Copies are separate boards, so your edits don't change them, and theirs don't change yours.
• A long word on a tile looks small. Can I make it bigger? Long words shrink so the whole word fits instead of being cut off. To give them more room, make the tile bigger on the Arrange tab, use fewer columns, or try a narrower font in the Word section.
• My image upload won't work. Any photo your browser can open will work. iPhone photos (HEIC) can fail to open outside Safari — take a screenshot of the photo, or save it as a JPG, and upload that.