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How can turn my laptop touchpad into a drawing pad?

I searched a lot for this but the only thing I found was a software called Inklet the problem I have is that this software is for Mac only.

Is there any software or way to turn laptop touchpad into a drawing pad?

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  • It all depends on the manufacturer of the touchpad. Unless they provide a special driver (like Synaptics), Windows only sees virtual mouse movements that are emulated in touchpad’s hardware and not the actual touchpad surface.
    – kinokijuf
    Sep 28, 2014 at 21:21
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    Touchpads have reasonably high resolution but they use a different method of sensing than a drawing pad so they often doen't work with a stylus.
    – fixer1234
    Sep 28, 2014 at 21:32
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    As you are probably already guessing, this isn't going to work very well with your touch pad. Even if you do find a way to do this the hardware just isn't made for this so I wouldn't expect great results. What you want is a pen tablet. When it comes to those, Wacom is (by far) the most popular brand. They have models starting around $50 too. I would spring for an Intuos model though for just a little more because they are much nicer.
    – krowe
    Sep 28, 2014 at 23:48
  • we are in 2016, is there any updates?? Oct 6, 2016 at 8:48

4 Answers 4

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I wrote a little C program for a Windows Precision Touchpad that does this in any drawing app where you can draw with a mouse.

Download and run finger-draw.exe. Then when you want to draw in some app (e.g., Paint or Inkscape), select your drawing tool in the app, move the cursor to one corner of the rectangular area where you want to draw and press ctrl+win, and move the cursor to the opposite corner of the area and press ctrl+win again. You will see the cursor quickly flash between all the corners of the area, and then your touchpad works like a drawing pad inside the area you have defined. Press ctrl+win or alt+win to exit drawing mode (the cursor will flash through all the corners of the area again, but this time counterclockwise.)

You can hold down shift to move the cursor without drawing. (If you prefer to hold down shift to draw, run with the --shift-down option.)

To go back to drawing in a previously-defined area, press alt+win.

Currently I don't support pressure sensitivity or hovering or anything fancy like that.

Note: The drawing area height will be adjusted to compensate for the touchpad aspect ratio.

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  • It's been 10 years dude! Thanks anyway
    – Sky
    Feb 22 at 14:45
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    I was playing with getting raw data with a touchpad and thought it would be cool to be able to draw with it. I googled to see if anyone had done it and found your question. That said, my program won't work on 10-year-old hardware/software, because it requires the touchpad to use a Windows Precision Touchpad driver, which is a more recent thing. Feb 22 at 16:30
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If you're using Asus/RoG, you can probably be provided with Asus Touchpad Handwriting software. You should be able to find generic software/libraries like this (Sourceforge Link) or this GitHub repo as well to achieve the same

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You can use this for adding signature to email or documents as well. It works surprisingly well

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Note that to save what you have drawn on the touchpad, you need to take screenshot and save it. Simplest option is to use OneNote clipping tool or Windows 10 inbuilt screenclipping Win+Shift+S

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I just use my fingers. If you have enough patience, it'll work eventually. I usually hold down with my left hand and draw with my right - do whatever is comfortable for you.

A website I use is aggie.io, but you can use paint or whatever is convenient for you. I inserted an example of a drawing I did.

Example image

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Handwriting recognition is build in Google gboard for many languages. So I use unified remote in combination with an Android device (tablet large enough or phone a bit small).

This works directly on a tablet and these are nowadays good enough for word email etc.

But if your work space is a PC than via an android device or via the touch screen of two in one devices (Surface/ HP Elite etc). Next best thing is Remarkable 2 or Kobo Elipsa/ Sage which also have handwriting recognition. Either way not directly via the touchpad.

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  • Question is no about Handwriting recognition.
    – Toto
    Oct 19, 2022 at 12:43

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