Surface pen no longer able to highlight the article

Anonymous
2017-11-06T04:35:32+00:00

I use the surface pen to do personal reading as well as highlighting on the article. However, recently I suddenly cannot do the highlighting  anymore. Each time I tried to highlight, the pen dragged the screen to the next page. Is this the problem with the pen or the application software?

Moved from:      Surface / Surface Pro 4 / Display and screen

Surface | Accessories | Surface Pen

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Anonymous
2017-11-13T21:35:21+00:00

Hi Swee,

I think what you are seeing are some Pen interaction improvements that were made in the Fall Creators update. 

**Scrolling with pen.**In the effort to create a more intuitive pen interaction on Windows, we are emphasizing natural and direct manipulation of content with pen. You don’t have to “hunt and peck” for scrollbars or frequently switch between pen and touch when navigating; now you can scroll content directly and fluently as you would with your finger.

**Selection with pen.**We also revised selection with pen by giving it more control over the selection process. Not only are we showing selection grippers whenever text is selected via pen, but also are allowing for a consistent and fast selection of content – text, objects, or ink—by dragging the pen while the barrel button is pressed.

For example, if you are in Edge or a Store app you can now select text by quickly double tapping a word and then dragging the selection grippers to adjust the words highlighted OR you can press and hold the pen's barrel button while you highlight the desired text.

Hope this helps,

Greg

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-01-26T16:59:15+00:00

    Bravo!  Well said.

    Microsoft, you can't just go and arbitrarily change functionality like this without making it optional.  Please restore the original functionality and create an option that allows those who prefer the new functionality to turn it on as they need it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-01-26T04:01:53+00:00

    Is there any way to up-vote this? I bought the Surface Pro with the pen for exactly this reason.

    It has been working flawlessly for a year, until 1709 was forced upon me last week.

    1709 has made the pen absolutely useless, as having to hold down the side button every time you need to highlight text is difficult at best. As said by others, if I want to scroll the screen, I have 10 fingers to choose from for that.

    It is obvious that those who made this change do not use the pen on a daily basis, as they would clearly see that this 'feature' needs to be optional, if at all.

    I've tried to use this for an hour with the side button...

    Result: anyone want to buy a lightly used, well taken care of Surface Pro 4?

    My finger has an indentation in it from having to press and hold a button that was not designed to press and hold.

    Let's use a bit of logic here:

    When you have a pen, a real pen with real ink, and you hold it to paper, what happens?

    It writes...

    It doesn't grab the paper and pull it away from its designated spot.

    You don't have to hold down a 'release' button to cause the ink to flow.

    The DEFAULT behavior of a digital pen needs to be the same.

    If you want the pen to drag something, that should be optional: click, hold and drag.

    This makes absolutely no sense and has destroyed a wonderful device that I have been joyfully using for close to a year; a device that when other people saw how it worked, were deeply impressed.

    Now??? Now what can I say???

    My finger hurts and I'll have a callous on it soon from this.

    This is a poorly thought out decision by MS, and you guys no longer have such a huge customer base to keep shedding customers. This needs to be addressed, at least with some type of 'optional' hotfix.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-01-25T21:48:06+00:00

    Hello Susan,

    Can you tell us which Surface device are you using? Also, how many side buttons does your Pen have?

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-01-25T17:03:29+00:00

    Whelp, NO. I accepted the forced Fall Creator update and NO my pen won't select text no matter how much I fiddle around with it. What setting or variable will we need to turn off or on or adjust to restore the ability to select text???? I'm an engineering professor, and need that functionality constantly. REALLY. CONSTANTLY. Please provided an actual solution or I suppose I'll have to roll back. Honestly, the frequent updates are not improvements many times, and I'm about to throw my hands in the air and reformat my desktop to Linux OS.

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