On Windows 10, 'Precision Touchpad' is a implementation designed to overcome the limitations found with traditional touchpads.
Using this approach, instead of manufacturers having to build drivers that translate touchpad signals into mouse and gesture inputs, Windows 10 is able to understand the inputs directly. This means that on devices with supported hardware, the implementation can provide a more accurate and reliable pointer, and it enables other features, such as a broader range of multi-touch gestures, accidental activation prevention, battery life, security, and the ability to customize a lot of new settings.
If you have a relatively new laptop (such as a Surface Pro 6 or a Dell XPS laptop), it's likely it includes support for Precision Touchpad, and you can customize the experience to suit your preferences, which can help you to improve navigation speeds and productivity.
In this Windows 10 guide, we'll show you how to find out if your device includes support for Precision Touchpad, and we'll outline the steps to enable, disable, and customize the experience.
How to check if your device supports Precision Touchpad
Although nowadays most laptops and hybrid devices come with a Precision Touchpad, there are still devices, especially older laptops, that don't support this technology. You can quickly find out if you can use and customize multi-touch gestures with your touchpad using these steps:
If you don't see the message, you'll still find the settings page, but you'll only get an option to adjust the touchpad sensitivity.
Alternatively, if your device doesn't include support for Precision Touchpads, you can use this workaround to replace the current trackpad driver with the Microsoft driver for laptops that use Synaptics or Elan drivers.
How to enable (or disable) Precision Touchpad
The ability to use gestures with a touchpad can be useful to improve your productivity, but it's not something for everyone and does not always works flawlessly. If you want to disable the experience, use the following steps:
How To Right Click On Surface Pro 3
If you also use your device with a traditional mouse, you can choose to disable the touchpad as you connect the mouse by clearing the Leave touchpad on when a mouse is connected option. In addition, you can use the available slider to adjust the cursor speed on the screen.
How to customize taps with Precision Touchpad
The default settings are usually good enough for most users, but you can customize many aspects of Precision Touchpads. For example, using the 'Taps' options, you can customize the tapping behavior when using a touchpad when clicking and selecting. Here's how:
How to customize scroll and zoom with Precision Touchpad
The Windows 10 Precision Touchpad settings also allow you to decide if you can use gesture to scroll content, the scrolling direction, and if you can use pinch to zoom, just like on tablets. Here's how.
In addition, under the 'Scroll and zoom' section, you can enable or disable pinch to zoom depending on your preferences.
How to customize three-finger (or four-finger) gestures with Precision Touchpad
Using the Precision Touchpad settings, you can control gestures with three or four fingers, which helps you speed up navigation when working with multiple apps, virtual desktops, and you can even use gestures to control audio and volume. Here's how:
If the touchpad supports it, you'll also find a section to configure an additional gesture using four fingers.
How to customize advanced gestures with Precision Touchpad
Using the Settings app, it's also possible to customize additional advanced settings when using three-finger (or four-finger) gestures on the touchpad, and you can access and customize the settings using these steps:
Instead of using one of the sets of actions under 'Three-finger gestures' (or 'Four-finger gestures'), this page allows you to specify custom actions for each swipe or tap.
For instance, you can select to use a three-finger tap or swipe on the Precision Touchpad to open Action Center. Or you can choose the Custom shortcut option to specify a keyboard shortcut that you want to execute when using a three-finger tap.
Here's a list of actions that you can use with the three-finger gesture:
After completing these steps, the three-finger gesture will execute the custom command you specified.
How to reset settings with Precision Touchpad
If you made changes to use the touchpad with custom configurations, you can restore the original settings using these steps:
Once you complete these steps, the touchpad will revert to its default settings.
More Windows 10 resources
For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:
This question already has an answer here:
How can I get middle click functionality with the surface pro touch pad on the Type Cover keyboard? With Synaptics touch pads you can change settings in the Mouse section of Control Panel, but there are no such settings on control panel of Surface Pro.
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marked as duplicate by Tog, Mokubai♦, Dave M, Breakthrough, a CVnSep 25 '13 at 12:09
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You can use one of several available methods for remapping. Unfortunately, there is no hardware button on the type cover or on the Surface Pro itself that would result in a middle click out of the box, so you are going to have to sacrifice some other key or key sequence to get middle click.
For example, with AutoHotkey, you can 'remap' a simultaneous left and right click (this may actually be hard to pull off with the Type Cover touchpad; I have one, and it's hard enough to click a single button!) to a middle click. Or, you could remap something like Ctrl+Left-Click to a middle click.
The AutoHotkey Documentation contains more information how to do this using various methods, including a 'pure' Windows Registry edit that has nothing to do with AHK and appears to work better in some situations / for some programs. So you'll basically have to try a bunch of different ways and key combinations until you find one you can live with.
Or get an external USB or bluetooth mouse that has a middle mouse button or the ability to 'click' the scroll wheel, and forget about the type cover's touchpad..
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Got yourself a new Microsoft Surface in the last couple of days? The Surface is definitely an interesting new tablet, especially when you pair it with the new Touch Cover and Type Cover that you can use with it. The touch cover is especially cool since it doesn’t even really have buttons like a normal keyboard.
Microsoft has been releasing a bunch of ads recently focused on the “click” sound that is made when you attach a type or touch cover to the Surface. That is a reassuring clicking sound so you know your keyboard it attached correctly. The annoying clicking sound is when you type on the touch cover and Windows plays a clicking sound that makes you feel like you’re using a keyboard with actual buttons. I’m guessing some people will like this because it will help them figure out if they actually pressed a key or not.
However, after a few hours of typing, I quickly became annoyed with the whole fake clicking sound. Thankfully, you can get rid of it. It instantly reminded me of the time when Internet Explorer would make that annoying clicking sound whenever you refreshed a web page or clicked on a link.
Turn Off Clicking Sound
If you want to disable the clicking sound when typing on the touch or type cover, here’s how you do it in Windows 8. Below this, I’ll also explain how to do it in Windows 10. First, you need to swipe from the right side of the device to the left to bring up the Charms bar.
Now you want to tap on Change PC Settings at the very bottom.
Now you want to click on General on the left hand side and scroll down until you see Touch Keyboard. Here there will be an option called Play key sounds as I type, which you can switch from On to Off.
In Windows 10, click on Settings from the Start menu and then click on Devices.
Click on Typing in the left-hand pane and then go to the section that is titled Touch Keyboard. You’ll see the Play key sounds as I type option there.
That’s about it! Note that if you are using Windows on a PC and you have the on screen keyboard enabled, it will also play clicking sounds when you press the buttons. You can disable the clicking sound there by clicking on the Options button on the keyboard.
Now you can just uncheck the Use click sound check box.
Once you get used to the new keyboards for Microsoft Surface, you’ll find you really don’t need those additional clicking sounds to type properly. Enjoy your new Surface!
If you’ve got your hands on Microsoft’s Surface Pro, there are a variety of things you should know. These tricks span everything from hidden keyboard shortcuts and freeing up disk space to using the pen and connecting standard headsets.
The information in this article should apply to both the original Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2. We tested this out with a Surface Pro 2, but the devices are fairly similar aside from the internals.
Use Surface-Specific Keyboard Shortcuts
If you have a Surface, you probably have a Type Cover or Touch Cover keyboard for it. These keyboards don’t have every single key you’ll find on larger keyboards. To make up for this, Microsoft has added a variety of Surface-specific keyboard shortcut combinations you can use. These aren’t actually printed on the keyboard itself, so you’ll need to know they exist before you can use them.
Free Up Hard Disk Space By Copying Recovery Partition To USB
RELATED:How to Create and Use a Recovery Drive or System Repair Disc in Windows 8 or 10
The Surface Pro has limited hard disk space. In fact, the cheapest model comes with 64 GB of storage space and around half of that will be used by Windows out of the box. The recovery partition, used when refreshing and resetting your PC, takes about 6 GB of space on your device. If you’d rather save this space, you can use a tool integrated into Windows to move the recovery partition onto a USB flash drive, freeing up space. You’ll need the USB flash drive if you ever want to refresh or reset your Surface.
To do this, press the Windows key to access the Start screen and type Recovery at the Start screen to search. Click the Create a recovery drive option. When the Recovery Drive window appears, ensure the “Copy the recovery partition from the PC to the recovery drive” option is selected and go through the wizard. Bear in mind that you’ll need a USB stick big enough to hold the recovery drive’s files.
Tweak DPI Scaling to Fix Blurry Fonts
RELATED:How to Make Windows Work Better on High-DPI Displays and Fix Blurry Fonts
The Surface Pro contains a 10.6-inch 1920×1080 display. This is a high-DPI display — if you used the full resolution on the Surface Pro’s screen, you’d really have to squint to make anything out. That’s why the Surface Pro uses DPI scaling to enlarge elements on the screen, making them larger and more detailed. Text, images, and interface elements are all much clearer and more detailed than on lower resolution displays.
Unfortunately, this DPI scaling requires that developers properly support it. One of the first things you’ll discover on a Windows 8.1 PC with a high DPI display is that many developers still don’t properly support DPI scaling. In fact, many of Microsoft’s own system utilities don’t, either. When an application doesn’t support DPI scaling, Windows will upscale it to 200% on Windows 8.1. The result will be a larger window that’s easier to see, but text and other elements will appear blurry. To fix blurry fonts in an application, you may want to disable DPI scaling individually for some applications.
Sign Documents With the Surface Pen
RELATED:How to Electronically Sign PDF Documents Without Printing and Scanning Them
In the past, we’ve covered a variety of ways to electronically sign documents without printing them. Some of these tricks involved signing a piece of paper, taking a photo of it with your webcam, and applying that captured signature to documents. With a high-quality stylus like the one included with the Surface Pro, you don’t have to use such tricks. In fact, you can use the Surface Pen to sign PDFs directly on your screen and quickly save your signature to them. This is even possible with the built-in PDF Reader app, so you don’t need any other tools.
To do this, simply open a PDF in the built-in Reader app. Locate the place in the doucment you want to sign and sign it directly on your screen using the Surface Pen. Swipe up from the bottom or down from the top to access the app bar, tap Save as, and save the PDF — when you save it, the Reader app will include your signature and anything else you’ve written on the document. You can then email the saved document, having signed it right on your screen.
This same trick will work on other Windows 8 devices with decent styluses.
Master the Surface Pen
RELATED:Not All Tablet Styluses Are Equal: Capacitive, Wacom, and Bluetooth Explained
The Surface Pen isn’t just for signing documents, of course. It uses Wacom technology to offer 1024 different levels of pressure sensitivity in apps that support this, allowing you to use it more like a professional artist’s Wacom pen than a typical cheap capacitive tablet stylus. You can play with it and its pressure levels in the included Fresh Paint app.
But the pen isn’t just an artist’s tool. It’s helpful for getting around the system, particularly when attempting to use Surface Pro’s full traditional Windows desktop in tablet mode. It’s much more precise than a finger — the stylus was Microsoft’s original tool for interacting with Windows tablets before the iPad came along.
Here’s what you can do with the Surface Pen:
Drawing on the screen with multiple pressure levels requires an app that supports the pressure levels. This includes anything from the easy Fresh Paint app included with Windows to Photoshop on the desktop. Flipping the pen around will also allow you to use the eraser on the screen, which will erase things you’ve drawn.
Connect Standard Headphone and Mic Jacks
Like many new devices — from smartphones and tablets all they way up to Ultrabooks and MacBooks — the Surface Pro only has a single audio jack. You can plug standard headphones into it just fine. If you have a headset with microphone designed for a smartphone, you can plug that headset into the port and use it normally. If you have a USB or Bluetooth headset, you can connect it to the Surface and use it and its microphone normally.
But what if you have a headset using the standard old headphone and microphone jacks? You’ll be surprised to discover that you can’t plug the mic connector into your Surface. If you have a headset you really want to use with your Surface, you can pick up an adapter that will convert the separate headphone and microphone connectors to a combined headset connector. Be sure to plug the headset into the adapter before connecting the adapter to your Surface.
We purchased a StarTech MUYHSMFF adapter from Amazon and can verify that it works with the Surface Pro. This adapter should also work with other modern laptops that only offer a single headset port, including MacBooks and Ultrabooks. Other similar adapters should hopefully work, too.
If you’re using a Surface Pro, be sure to keep it updated. Microsoft offers monthly firmware updates via Windows Update. In the past, these have added new features (like the keyboard shortcuts above), fixed bugs, and improved battery life.
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Looks like a small but massively significant update has gone out for the Surface app. Version 10.0.342 is now live in the store and it is going to make a lot of folks happy.
The Surface app, which comes pre-installed on all new Surfaces, finally now lets you customize the rear 3-way button on the new Surface pen for Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 (it also works with Surface 3 and Pro 3).
Heading into the app you can find sub-sections for Button Customization including options for single-click, double-click, and press and hold. Here are the new choices:
When choosing Launch a store app a sub-menu pops up letting you choose any install app on your system. Same for a desktop app.
In the past, Microsoft let users choose between OneNote (Store app) and OneNote (desktop), but that was it. Even that feature was removed with the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4.
Now, however, the company is making a nice comeback by giving users the ability to make those buttons do whatever they want, which is very important for artists and engineers who would prefer to launch a specific professional app.
Update: As others have noted, this app appears to let users only modify the settings on the new Surface pen and not the old one that comes with the Surface 3 and Surface Pro 3. However, those users can buy and use this newer pen on their devices and benefit from all the new features.
Update 2: Some readers are confirming even with a new pen that this does not work on older Surfaces hinting that this is a Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 feature for now.
Thanks, Rick V., for the tip!
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