Touchscreen scrolling in PDFs triggers immediate text selection instead of page scrolling.

Question

Touchscreen scrolling in PDFs triggers immediate text selection instead of page scrolling.

T D 0

Starting today, possibly after a recent Edge update, whenever I try to scroll through a PDF using my finger, Edge immediately begins selecting text instead of scrolling the page. Blue text-selection handles appear right away, and large portions of text become selected accidentally.

Now I can no longer scroll through PDFs naturally by swiping on the touchscreen. The issue seems to be specific to Edge's PDF viewer, since touch scrolling works normally in Edge on regular webpages, and touch scrolling works normally when viewing the same PDF in Firefox. Restarting Edge, reopening the PDF, even restarting the entire computer do not resolve the issue. And this issue affects all PDF files that I open in Edge, not just a specific document.

My device is Surface Pro 8 with a Surface slim pen 2.

T D 0 Reputation points

2026-06-05T22:29:19+00:00

Below is one way to temporarily get back finger scrolling in PDF viewer in Edge
T D 0 Reputation points

2026-06-05T22:31:03.9033333+00:00

When I switch to Draw mode and write on the PDF with my finger, the ink appears, then I erase the ink and try to use my finger swiping on the screen again, touch scrolling temporarily works, and I can turn pages by swiping, just as I could before. However, when I turn off the Draw mode, the issue returns and touch gestures start selecting text again.

2 answers

Your answer

T D 0 Reputation points

2026-06-05T22:29:19+00:00

Below is one way to temporarily get back finger scrolling in PDF viewer in Edge
T D 0 Reputation points

2026-06-05T22:31:03.9033333+00:00

When I switch to Draw mode and write on the PDF with my finger, the ink appears, then I erase the ink and try to use my finger swiping on the screen again, touch scrolling temporarily works, and I can turn pages by swiping, just as I could before. However, when I turn off the Draw mode, the issue returns and touch gestures start selecting text again.

Answer 1

Hi T D

This sounds like a recent Edge PDF viewer affecting touch input on Surface devices rather than a hardware issue with your Surface Pro 8 or Slim Pen 2.

Things worth trying:

Reset Edge PDF-related flags at edge://flags
Disable Hardware Acceleration in edge://settings/system
Clear Edge cache
Check whether the issue started after a recent Edge update (edge://settings/help)

I recommend submitting feedback through: Edge > Help and feedback > Send feedback so that the relevant team can have a deeper look into it. Since this is only a public forum, no one here can help you check what's happening in the backend.

Include:

Surface Pro 8
Surface Slim Pen 2
“Touch scrolling in PDFs selects text instead of scrolling”
Mention that Draw mode temporarily restores touch scrolling

Hope this will be looked into soon!

Answer 2

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