The S Pen has been a cornerstone of Samsung phones and tablets since the release of the original Galaxy Note in 2011, and while the Note branding is all but dead, its legacy lives on in the Galaxy S22 Ultra and Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 series.

The S Pen is a powerful tool with a dedicated fanbase for a reason. If this is your first time using one, here's how to get the most out of it.While this article is about the S Pen in the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, these tips carry across to Samsung's other devices, like the Tab S8, Z Fold3, and even the S21 Ultra (if you bought the stylus separately.)

Get notification previews with Air View

You can use the S Pen to preview notifications and some messages by hovering over the cut-off text. This works with all notifications, but, unfortunately, there aren't many apps that support the action.

Gmail, Instagram DMs, and a handful of others will let you do this. While that limits how much you can use Air View, it's still helpful when sorting through the myriad of notifications your phone collected while you were asleep.

Use handwritten text on Gboard

Gboard has handwriting input built in, and it works great with the S Pen. It even supports pressure sensitivity. Setting it up is easy:

1. Open Gboard settings by pressing the arrow on the top right of the keyboard followed by the cog icon.
2. Open the Languages menu.
3. Tap add keyboard.
4. Tap on your language, and choose Handwriting from the listed layouts.
5. Tap done.

Now you'll now see a globe icon on your keyboard where your emoji key used to be. Long-pressing the button will still allow you to access all of your emoticons. Tapping the globe will switch between QWERTY and handwriting layouts. Handwriting is fast and accurate, even with the illegible glyphs I threw at it.

Using Samsung's keyboard will automatically switch the layout to handwriting mode when it detects the S Pen, but I find it inferior to what Gboard has to offer in almost every way, so I recommend switching.

Quickly select text with the S Pen

Copy and pasting text can be a chore, especially if you're trying to highlight exactly the right text. The S Pen comes into its own here.

Hold down the button on the side of the stylus, and drag it across the text you want to copy. There's no long-pressing and waiting for the right menu to pop up – it all works quickly and reliably.

Block gestures with the S Pen

By default, you can use the S Pen to swipe up from the bottom and sides of the screen to trigger Android's gesture navigation. While that's fine for general use, it can get in the way when you're writing and drawing.

It's annoying when you need to write up to the edge of the screen, and you mistakenly trigger the back gesture, thereby deleting all of your work. Thankfully, there's an easy fix.

1. Open Settings and then open the Display menu.
2. Scroll down and open the Navigation Bar menu.
3. Scroll down and toggle Block gestures with S pen.

Customize your screenshots with Air Command

Sometimes, when taking a screenshot, you only want to capture a specific part of an image. Usually, you'd need to open your gallery and crop the screenshot after the fact, but the S Pen can save you time here.

Call up Air Command by pressing the S Pen button while hovering over the screen and tap on Smart Select. Then drag the S Pen over what you want to capture, and you're done.

Smart Select does more than grab square images from your screen, though. There's also a lasso tool, the option to take round screenshots, and, our personal favorite, a GIF capture option. With that option selected, drag the box over the screen area you want to record, choose the quality of the GIF, and hit record. If you enjoy making memes and GIFs, you'll get a lot of use out of this one.

There's plenty more you can do with the S Pen, like controlling media and the camera app through air gestures, but these are the ones you'll find most useful. In addition to what's baked into the system, there are plenty of apps to try with the S pen as well.

Pencil in appointments in Samsung Calendar

Samsung's Calendar app has long been my favorite over Google Calendar, and one of the reasons is the ability to write on it with the S Pen. Creating events and reminders is an easier and more helpful way of making sure you remember something, but drawing is more fun. Highlighting and circling important dates makes them easier to find from the month view, and recreating your favorite memes is a delightful bonus.

Write, doodle, and annotate in Samsung Notes

If you need to mark up a PDF, write notes, or do some basic doodling, the Samsung Notes app is the perfect fit. It supports Samsung's proprietary notes files, PDF, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, images, and plain text files. You can open and edit any document saved in those formats and save new ones as well.

In addition to keyboard and S Pen input, you can use S Pen To Text to convert your handwriting into text so that you can search for keywords later on. If you have awful handwriting and need to share your notes with others, converting it to text could save a lot of headaches later on.

If you've ever used the Notes app on an iPad or iPhone, all of this should feel familiar to you. The features are similar, and Samsung's execution rivals the level of polish and optimization that Apple's apps are known for.

All of your notes will be synced across Galaxy devices via your Samsung account automatically. There's also an option to back everything up to Microsoft OneDrive if you need to access these files on devices from other OEMs.

Relax and unwind with your S Pen and Samsung PENUP

Samsung PENUP is a drawing and coloring app that comes pre-installed on the S22 Ultra, and while it has a basic feature set, it's still fun to mess around with. If you want to use the S Pen to create true artwork, this isn't the app for you. But if you want to doodle, the app has everything you need.

Where PENUP shines is its coloring mode. There are hundreds of images to choose from, with more added each day. If you have a child and want to give them something to do while, handing them the S Pen and letting them be creative is a good option.

Tweak Air Commands with Pentastic

Good Lock is a suite of apps that lets you customize almost every part of your Galaxy device, and that includes the S Pen. You can choose between five styles of Air Command, each taken from previous generations of Galaxy Note. Once you've decided which style you like, you can adjust the amount of dimming and blur, and even choose a background image.

There are seven S Pen pointers to choose from, ranging from the usual arrows to cute animal stickers. You can change the size of each of the pointer styles and import PNG images to make your own. You can also choose between seven sets of sound effects to be played when the stylus is removed and reinserted into the phone, or add your own if you'd prefer.

Finally, Pentastic adds a double-tap shortcut that is triggered when you hold down the S Pen button and double-tap the screen. Several S Pen functions can be assigned to this, like writing on your calendar, magnifying the screen, and triggering Smart Select. If none of those appeal to you, there's an option to assign the shortcut to any app, which you can launch with the double-tap gesture.

You can download Pentastic from the Galaxy Store or APK Mirror.

Create illustrations on the go with your S Pen and Infinite Painter

Infinite Painter is the best drawing app I've used on Android and the closest thing you'll find to Procreate on the iPad. There are dozens of brushes and tools to pick from, and each one can be tweaked to perfection. The S Pen is fully supported, with pressure sensitivity and side button mapping, although you'll need to do some work to get the latter feature working.

You can have the S Pen button toggle the eraser, blend mode, the UI, undo/redo, and eyedropper. Setting that up is simple, but there's an issue — pressing the button will still summon Air Command. To get around this, you need to create a Bixby Routine.

1. Open the Bixby Routines app.
2. Tap add routine on the bottom bar.
3. Tap the plus icon under the if subheading.
4. Tap on App opened and then find Painter in the app list (Infinite Painter calls itself Painter in the app drawer.)
5. Tap on the plus under the then subheading.
6. Find and open Air Command with Pen button, and choose off.
7. Tap Next, name your routine, and tap done.

With that finished, Air Command will be disabled whenever you're using Infinite Painter, and you can use the S Pen button for whatever function you like within the app.

Use Adobe Fill & Sign to complete documents

If signing documents is something you only do occasionally, Samsung Notes is capable enough. But if your job revolves around contracts and documents that need to be signed and initialed, then Adobe Fill & Sign will save you a lot of time.

You only need to write your signature and initials once, and then the app will let you place a copy of these where needed. The S Pen is perfect for this, both when creating your signature and inserting it on the page.

The app also lets you complete checkboxes and add type-in text fields. While doing all of this with your finger is possible, the S Pen makes it easier to get everything perfectly lined up.

The S Pen is a powerful addition to any smartphone or tablet, and we've barely scratched the surface of what it can do. Whether you want to draw, write, or preview emails, the S Pen makes the process seamless. Seeing it built into a phone again after a year's absence is a relief. Long may it continue to improve the Samsung Galaxy experience.