

For instance, the products in the Microsoft Surface line ( Surface Pro, Surface Book, etc.) may be used as a laptop and a tablet. Some of the better ideas that the Google engineers have already built into Chrome, like swipe left and swipe right touch gestures for back and forward browser actions, respectively, are already part of Chrome’s core code.As devices running Windows have changed over the years, Microsoft has had to implement new features to accommodate them. Check back in chrome://flags periodically to see if there are any useful additions. Some may disappear and others may appear as new versions are released. Note: the above flags are available as of Chrome stable release version 59.

Step Three: Tweak a Few of Chrome’s Flags If you really prefer pen input, you can tap the keyboard icon on the virtual keyboard itself to switch back again. Your default text input tool should appear if it’s Windows’ handwriting recognition tool, tap the pen button all the way in the lower-right corner of the screen, then tap the standard or split keyboard option, like so. Tap any text box in Chrome-the URL bar will work fine. So if you’re using a pen input, you’ll want to switch back to a mobile-style virtual keyboard. Unless you have amazing penmanship, the Surface Pen and similar stylus designs probably aren’t precise enough to accurately enter web addresses, email addresses, and other esoteric text necessary for surfing the Internet. You should see the taskbar collapse down to only the Windows button, Back button, and Cortana button (circle) on the left side. Tap the “Tablet Mode” setting on the lower-right portion of the screen (you may need to tap “Expand” to see it first). To enter Tablet Mode, open the Action Center by swiping in from the right side of the screen.
Windows tablet handwriting to text windows 10 normal mode manual#
That’s a trick that doesn’t work in Desktop Mode, necessitating workarounds like a manual keyboard button on the taskbar. It should also collapse the keyboard when you tap somewhere outside the text box. Specifically, it will automatically detect when you select any text field (like the URL bar or a text entry box in a forum) and bring up the active keyboard, just like Microsoft’s Edge does. And why not? Windows’ user interface has evolved to a point where you can control a tablet with a Surface Pen just as well as a mouse.Īctually, there’s a really good reason why: some third-party applications like Chrome work subtly differently when Windows operates in Tablet Mode.

This might seem obvious, but there are a lot of users who leave Windows 10’s “desktop mode” enabled all the time.
