UsingMac.com

Mac Tricks and Tips, Wallpapers and Applications for Mac Users

MacBook - Trackpad Adjustments

Advertisements

Trackpad plays the most important role on using MacBook, especially when mouse isn't present. How to adjust Trackpad behavior?

Note : It's obvious that reading this article won't be useful for those Macs without trackpad. And, I'm not discussing MacBook Air's smart trackpad here.

Trackpad Preferences Pane

It's really easy to find this pane. These simple steps will do.

  1. Go inside Apple ▸ System Preferences…
  2. Click on Keyboard & Mouse under Hardware section
  3. You will see 4-5 tabs inside, i.e. Keyboard, Trackpad, Mouse, Bluetooth, and Keyboard Shortcuts. Choose Trackpad
  4. Now, you're already inside Trackpad Preferences Pane

Speed Control

Inside Trackpad Preferences Pane, three sliders will stand out of crowd. These sliders control tracking speed, double-click speed and scrolling speed. I set my MacBook's tracking speed to 70%-80% of its maximum, double-clicking speed 80% and scrolling speed 20%. These settings fit me, but you are free to set your own preferences.

Define Trackpad Gestures

There are several gestures you can perform with trackpad :

  1. Moving Cursor : One finger
    Gesture : One finger's movement
    Checkbox : - (this gesture always works)
  2. Scrolling Page
    Gesture : Two fingers' movement
    Checkbox : Use two fingers to scroll and Allow horizontal scrolling
  3. Zooming
    Gesture : Pressing selected modifier key along with two fingers' movement Checkbox : Zoom while holding
  4. Clicking
    Gesture : Tapping with one finger (two fingers for right-clicking)
    Checkbox : Clicking
  5. Dragging
    Gesture : Tap the item two times and then keep your finger on the trackpad to drag the item along
    Checkbox : Dragging and Drag Lock

As a matter of advice, moving cursor will sometimes be mistakenly read as clicking if you're not experience enough in using it, like me.

Tips : Some of the checkbox contain "hidden" information that can be seen when you hover your cursor long enough above it, such as Clicking.

Other Trackpad Options

The rest two checkboxes are quite self-explanatory, I believe.

Categories: Tips and Tricks, Utilities
Tags: Keyboard, keyboard

Subscribe to RSS Leave a Comment (0)

Related Entries

Some articles taken from our resource base, tightly related to current article, to empower you with more knowledge on tweaking the most out of your Mac.

Leave a Comment