Split View Gestures for Multitasking on the iPad

Learn how to open 2 documents or app side-by-side or in a split view on the iPad with iPad OS 15.

With iPad OS 15, Apple introduced a few new ways of opening 2 documents or two apps in split view or side-by-side on the iPad. You can use the three dots at the top of any open app, go to where you can view all your open apps and drag one on top of another, or use the shelf when viewing a document from an app. Learn how these different methods work to open 2 apps in split view in this video for the iPad.

Video TranscriptIn this video, we’re going to look at how we can open up two apps or documents in a split view or side by side on the iPad. Let’s go to my iPad.

So the first thing is, is I want to clarify, I am using iPdOS 15. If you’re using an older version of iPadOS, you’re not going to be able to use all of the different tips or all the different ways of opening up a window, side-by-side on the iPad. So I recommend updating to at least iPadOS 15 before. Let’s see how we can open up two documents or two apps side by side on the iPad.

So I’m looking at my iPad here. And when we open up an app, it opens up in full screen. We’re already know there, so let’s go ahead and open up my numbers app. We can see it opened up in full screen. Now, what I would like to do is open up another numbers document next to this doc. I want to open them up and split the, you are side by side. How do we do that? Well, there’s a couple of different ways to do that. The first way is by going up to the top, you’re going to see, we have these three dots here.

I’ll zoom in here a little bit. You’re going to see, we have these three dots here. This is new and iPadOS 15. When we tap on these three dots, I’m going to tap on them. We have a couple of different options. First off, we can open up the app in full screen mode. So we can see that my app is in full screen mode, but if we go over to the right, you’re going to see, we have this split view here.

If I were to tap on this, I’d be able to open up another app in side-by-side or split view. And then we also have. A pop-over, I’ll talk about that in another video. So what we want to do is open up another document that numbered numbers document side by side. So what we do is we go back over to the middle one here, I tap on it.

And now what we need to do is decide where we want that split view to happen. Where do we want this particular document to go? I want this particular document to go over on the left side. So I’m going to tap on the left icon here. We can see moved over to the left. It is peaking out over here on the left here.

Now, what I need to do is open up another document or another app, like I said, I want to open up another document, another numbers document. So what I do is I go down to numbers here. I have it in my doc here. I selected. And we can see it opened up to numbers. Now, what I need to do is I need to just select which document I want to open up.

So I’m going to go with my simple budget here. All I have to do is just click on it and we can see that both of those documents are now open side by side. I click on the left side. I can work on the left document. I click on the right side. I can work on the right day. We can also change the split view.

You’re going to see that we have this a little horizontal line here in the middle. All I have to do is just drag this and I can change it. Now we can only change it in 25% increments and not all apps allow this. In fact, not all apps you can open up and split view. So I just drag this where I want, and we can see it’s going in 25% increments or quarter view income.

Now, if you want to open up a document back in full screen, what do you do? Well, all you have to do is just go back up to the three dots here in the, above the document window. And then when I click on it, I can select my full screen again. So let’s go ahead and select this. And now it’s in full screen. Now I mentioned that we can do this in a number of ways.

Another way is through all of our open ads. If you’re familiar with the Mac and spaces, you’re going to see that this looks very familiar. So in order to do that, all I need to do is just show all of my open apps. So I’m just going to swipe up from the bottom here. I have an iPad with a track pad, so I swipe up with three fingers and we can see all of my open apps.

We have my numbers document here. I want to open this back up and split you. All I do is just drag this on top of the other document, and you’re going to see that it splits. I can put it on either side. And then when I let go that document, when I click on it is going to be open up in split view.

Side-by-side with the other document, let’s go take a look at how we can do this another way. So I’m going to go back into full screen. I can drag that over to the right to go back into full screen. When I click on these three dots. You’re going to see down at the bottom. I have all of my open windows in this particular document or this particular app.

So I’m in numbers. We can see, we have all of my different documents down here at the bottom. I want to open up my simple budget here in split view. All I have to do is just click on this and I drag it over to the right and it opens up in split view so I can use the three dots. I can go into where I show all of my open apps.

And then I can also just click on the three dots at the top. You’re going to see a shelf at the bottom. This is what Apple calls the shelf with all of the open windows for that particular app. You just drag the document over that you want to open up in a split view. Now, I also mentioned that you could do this with apps.

How do you do this with apps? Well, basically it works the same way. I’m going to close this here or go into. View here. I want to open up another app in full screen. All I have to do is just go up to the top. Here. I click on the three dots. I click on the split view and then I just select, I’m going to go to the right this time.

It moves that document over to the right. And now I click on the app. I want to open. So let’s go with my notes app. And now we can see that my notes app is open alongside of the numbers app. I can also do that. I’m going to go straight into my notes here. I can also do this using all of my open apps. So again, I swipe up to view all of my open apps.

I want to take my numbers and open it up in split view with my notes app. I just drag this up. It opens up in split view, click on it, and now we can see it in split view. The only thing is is you can’t use that shelf. Remember how we have our shelf? I’m going to click on these three dots. We can see all of my open documents for this particular app number down at the bottom here.

I can not use this technique to open it up to a new app because it’s going to just show my documents. So if I wanted to replace my notes app with one of these documents, I can do that. So now I just drag this over to the right. It’s going to replace the notes app. And now I’m looking at my two numbers document.

So those are the different ways that you can open up an app or two documents and split view or side by side on the iPad. Basically, all you have to do is just click on the three dots at the top. When you do that, you’re going to have a number of different choices. You want to go into split. Click on where you want your current document or current app to go.

You can have it go to the left side or the right side. And then you just click on the other app. It could be the same app. And then you choose the document that you want to open up in split view. You can also view all of your open apps and then drag one app or one document on top of another. And it’ll open up in split view.

And then if you want it to open up two documents from the same app, such as numbers or pages, All you have to do is just click on the three dots down at the bottom. You’re going to see a shelf with all of your open documents, just drag one of those documents over to the right or left and it’ll open up in split view.

So those are the different ways we can open up an app and split view or side by side on the iPad.