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abk7113
abk7113
Participant
January 17, 2019
Answered

Touchpad zoom and pan not working (InDesign)

  • January 17, 2019
  • 5 replies
  • 29015 views

Hello,

I just switched from Mac to Windows. On my macbook I used to be able to zoom and pan using pinch and two-finger motions on the touchpad of my laptop, but on my new computer this is not working. I don't know if it's relevant, but this new laptop has a touchscreen. I found some other threads discussing a similar issue for an earlier version of indesign, and supposedly this was resolved a while back. However, running the latest version I am not able to use my trackpad as desired and it's quite frustrating as this is my preferred way of working. Is there a setting that I can change to fix this?

Thanks for any guidance!

      Correct answer Donny111

      I think I've found a work around.

      It seems that on windows, InDesign will activate CTRL while scrolling with a touchpad.

      I used a key remapper (Windows PowerToys v0.64.0) to bind the CTRL key to ALT.

      This allows me to scroll.

       

      Of course this means that the CTRL button is not available.

      You can either map CTRL to another key (I swapped the ALT and CTRL key with eachother)

      or

      You can only activate the key remapper when using Adobe (Which is possible with the remapper mentioned earlier)

       

      So it's still not great but at least it's works for now.

      5 replies

      D
      Donny111Correct answer
      Participant
      June 20, 2023

      I think I've found a work around.

      It seems that on windows, InDesign will activate CTRL while scrolling with a touchpad.

      I used a key remapper (Windows PowerToys v0.64.0) to bind the CTRL key to ALT.

      This allows me to scroll.

       

      Of course this means that the CTRL button is not available.

      You can either map CTRL to another key (I swapped the ALT and CTRL key with eachother)

      or

      You can only activate the key remapper when using Adobe (Which is possible with the remapper mentioned earlier)

       

      So it's still not great but at least it's works for now.

      A
      Andrew38832350vl3e
      Participant
      July 26, 2024

      ADOBE DEVELOPERS,

       

      I urge you to try to make the windows experience comparable to the Mac experience when working on a trackpad and no mouse across Illustrator, Indesign, and Photoshop. Perhaps it's easier on Mac for coding reasons, but as a Mac user in the past, simply allowing pinch to zoom and more control over pan sensitivity would drastically improve my experience.  

       

      Seems this issue has been going on unresolved for years now... if it's a problem with windows, I get it, but I hope you can fix this!

        T
        Trap_Kidd2232
        Participant
        October 3, 2025

        ong because even in 2025 it still isnt fixed

         

          D
          Danyulwilson
          Participant
          March 18, 2023

          I figured it out finally!

          On Mac go to Preferences > Interface > Tool Tips (dropdown) select normal

          This was infuriating me too, there are obvious work arounds but the trackpad zoom is useful when out and about without a mouse - hope this helps

            J
            JosieC_DigitalOps
            Participant
            July 25, 2023

            THIS WORKS! Thank you. This was driving me nuts.

              R
              rossw9229531
              Participant
              December 13, 2020

              Hey. I had this same problem and it was infuriating me. I fixed by ticking this box. Though it might have now broken zoom when using a mouse (cant test right now), the touchpad now does pinch to zoom.

              Edit->Preferences->Tools->Zoom with Scroll Wheel

               

              Good Luck.

              R
              rossw9229531
              Participant
              December 13, 2020

              Ignore that! two finger scrolling now zooms! this is worse than before. 

                hammer0909
                Community Expert
                hammer0909Community Expert
                Community Expert
                January 17, 2019

                I'm a Mac user so I can't speak directly for Windows. But if you go to Edit > Preferences and click on the Interface section at left, you may find an option to "Enable Multi-Touch Gestures". Not sure if you have this on Windows or not but this might help. Can you use pinch and zoom in other programs on your computer?

                abk7113
                abk7113Author
                Participant
                January 17, 2019

                Checked this and multi-touch gestures are enabled. I am able to use the trackpad to zoom and pan in other software, but not within indesign, photoshop or illustrator.

                  A
                  Anonymous
                  January 17, 2019

                  Moving from Adobe Creative Cloud to InDesign

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