Two finger 360 degree scrolling in Adobe products on Windows?

October 7, 2014 10:01 AM

Is there a way to enable 360 degree two finger scrolling in Adobe products for a Windows 8.1 machine? Essentially, I want it to work like it does on a Mac.

For example, in Illustrator for a Mac you can use two fingers to move freely around the page, almost as if you were using the hand tool. On a PC it only seems to work for vertical scrolling. InDesign does a little better and allows for horizontal scrolling, but that's still not cutting it.

I'm completely bewildered and no amount of searching is turning up anybody having this problem or a potential fix. I did a thorough control panel search. Is this just a Windows quirk? I hope not.

I'm on a Lenovo X1 Carbon, if that matters.

Thank you!

posted by Defenestrator to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Sounds like you're referring to the capabilities of Apple's Magic Mouse or more specifically, their Magic Trackpad.

Unfortunately, it isn't as easy as installing a driver. The process would involve an investment in either of the two above products and the additional process involved to configure it to work in Windows.

There may be cheaper alternatives for the hardware than buying it directly from Apple, but the drivers that you do eventually need to install for the official mouse or trackpad in Windows are unofficially supported by Apple, for obvious reasons.
posted by swoopstake at 2:22 PM on October 7, 2014

Response by poster: Argh. So basically even though the laptop has a trackpad that looks almost identical to the trackpad on a mac laptop, it doesn't have the same capabilities?
posted by Defenestrator at 9:15 PM on October 7, 2014

Best answer: The X1 Carbon received a lot of praise for "being good for a Windows trackpad," and is aesthetically similar to a MacBook, but the bottom line is that the capabilities are not matched without the appropriate corresponding hardware.
posted by swoopstake at 6:12 AM on October 8, 2014

Response by poster: Yeah, makes sense. How disappointing :(

Thanks for the response!
posted by Defenestrator at 8:00 AM on October 8, 2014