Customize Microsoft Surface Trackpad Gestures & Reverse Two-Finger Scrolling

Microsoft’s Surface tablet has earned its fair share of interest since its inception. Although it’s the company’s first foray into the modern tablet market, Microsoft has created a device that not only looks good, but performs well too. But of all its splendid design and solid build quality, it’s the multi-input functionality that stands out the most. Along with touchscreen gestures, the slab also lets you fiddle with it via the detachable touch (or type) cover, and lets you switch between the former and latter navigation on the fly. The touch cover is a full QWERTY keyboard with an integrated trackpad (touchpad) that you’d normally see on your notebook. By default, you cannot customize any trackpad settings according to your preferences. For instance you cannot turn the trackpad off to avoid any accidental finger tapping. Luckily however, the software giant has finally released a Windows Store app for the job called Trackpad Settings. The application not only enables you to turn off the trackpad, but also lets you toggle a few more settings...

For those who are not familiar, the trackpad – besides controlling the cursor – supports multi-tap and scrolling gestures. You can tap your finger once for the left click action, while tapping twice controls the right-click action. You may also tap and drag across text to select it for cut, copy or paste actions. Likewise, you can slide two fingers on it for vertical and horizontal scrolling. Since you cannot toggle these actions by default, the app provides a simple way to do that.

Trackpad Settings can be downloaded from Windows Store. Just open the Store app from Start Screen, press Win + Q and type ‘Trackpad’ (without the quotes). Once at the app’s in-store page, simply tap the Install button.

Trackpad Settings features a very simple and intuitive interface, with no complex settings to confuse you. Once launched, you are presented with a few options under Touch Cover section. The app also displays a picture of the touch cover to the left, highlighting the area of the trackpad. To turn the trackpad off, simply tap its toggle under Trackpad. Similarly, you can also toggle the Tap gestures and Scrolling. The app also allows you to activate inverted scrolling via tapping its toggle under Flip scrolling direction. Those of us who prefer to scroll the page in the same direction as our fingers are moving, will find this option a relief, as previously there was no way to do that on the Surface.

The app is meant for and works with Microsoft Surface tablets only.

Download Trackpad Settings