You can now customize the Surface Pen buttons on your Surface Book and Surface Pro

Mark Coppock
2 years ago in Latest news

One of the most-requested features of Microsoft’s Surface line since the advent of the Surface Pro 3 has been the ability to customize what happens when the pen button is launched. Well, Microsoft is happy to oblige, because they’ve launched an update to the Surface app that accomplishes just that.

Now, we need to say here that some WinBeta staff members aren’t seeing the pen button options even though the app updates correctly. We’ve confirmed this on two of our devices, a Surface Pro 3 and a Surface Book. However, thanks to WinBeta reader Anthony, who provided this tip (thanks!), we can confirm that the options are indeed there.

There are those pesky Surface pen button options!

So, that’s strange. But if you update your app and you are seeing this improvement, here’s what you can do with it. You can adjust the options for single click, double click, as well as press and hold. OneNote is the default setting for the single click option, or you can change it to launch a Store app, or a desktop app, or disable it entirely.

Double click takes a screenshot by default, but you can disable it, launch a Store app, or launch a desktop app. Press and hold will open Cortana by default, but you can disable it, etc, etc.

Other updates include some minor user interface updates. Nothing major, mind you, just more descriptive titles and colors more in line with Windows 10 conventions. Here are a few examples.

Generally, things look more streamlined and up to current Windows 10 standards.

A splash of color and more descriptive titles round out the changes.

If you have a Surface that can make use of the Surface App, go to the Store and hit the update button. You’ll want to be on version 10.0.342.0 to make sure you’re up to snuff, and let us know in the comments if your pen button options are showing up.