How can I make the Android emulator show the soft keyboard?

I found out how to do this on the Android emulator itself (Menu, "Settings" App - not the settings of the emulator outside). All you need to do is:

open settings app -> Language & Input -> Go to the "Keyboard & Input Methods -> click Default

This will bring up a Dialog in which case you can then disable the Hardware Keyboard by switching the hardware keyboard from on to off. This will disable the Hardware keyboard and enable the softkeyboard.

If you're using AVD manager add a hardware property Keyboard support and set it to false.

That should disable the shown keyboard, and show the virtual one.

Settings > Language & input > Current keyboard > Hardware Switch ON.

This option worked.

Here are the steps:

• => Settings
• => Language and Input
• => Default
• => Hardware Physical Keyboard
• => off to turn on the On Screen Keyboard