How to Cross Out Text on Your iPhone or iPod

Editing text on a mobile device can be frustrating at the best of times. With small screens and finger-based input, selected a specific character or sentence requires patience and accuracy. It's even more tricky when you need to bold, underline or cross out text. That's because there's no way to do this using the standard apps found on your iPhone or iPod. Instead, you'll need to use another app to get crossed out text.

The easiest way to cross out text on your iPhone, iPod or iPad is to use Apple's Pages app. The app is free and offers a full-featured document editor, similar to Microsoft Word. To cross out text using Pages, select any text within the app, tap the "Paintbrush" icon in the top menu, then tap the "Strike Through" button in the pop-up menu. You can now export the document as a Pages, PDF or Word file and email it directly from the app.

Third-party apps are available that also offer the ability to cross out text. Documents (Office Docs) is a free option as you can open a document and cross out text. Another app is Microsoft Word. Word is free and offers the ability to produce strikethrough text, add drop shadows, justify paragraphs and more. However, please note that crossed-out text is limited to these apps – it will not copy and paste into the default Apple apps.

Another free alternative is to use Google Drive. Begin by opening the website on your iPhone, iPad or iPod. Tap the "Docs" button, create a new document, then switch to the Desktop editor by tapping the "Desktop" shortcut at the bottom of the screen. Next, tap the "Format" menu shortcut at the top of the screen, then select "Strikethrough" from the drop-down menu. Any text you now enter will have a line through its center.

The iPhone, iPod and iPad do not natively support rich text. As a result, it's not possible to copy text with a strikethrough from the Pages app, then paste it into a message or email – try and the pasted text will appear plain and unformatted. So when editing rich text that includes a strikethrough, bold format or italics, please note that you will have to export the document as a PDF, Word file or Pages document.