When it comes to touchscreen drawing tablets, intuitive interaction becomes a significant advantage due to the direct manipulation of content with your fingertips.

With touch functionality integrated directly into the screen or tablet itself, touchscreen tablets reduce the need for external accessories, like a mouse or a keyboard.

However, are all wacom tablets touch sensitive​? which model supports this function? Touch or No Touch? Are the wacom “touch” models worth it?

In this article, I’ll demystify the wacom multi-touch tablet for you and explain whether this gimmicky feature is worth it, as well as how to turn it on and off.

Are Wacom Tablets Touch Sensitive​?

Not all wacom tablets are touch sensitive, None of the new consumer tier tablets have touch, In addition to wacom one 13 touch.

Non-touch wacom tablet models include One by wacom, Wacom Intuos, Wacom one S, Wacom one M, Wacom One 12, Wacom One 13 (Gen. 1), Wacom Cintiq 16, and Wacom Cintiq 22.

Wacom has purposefully removed that feature, along with things like eraser support, in order to make their more expensive tablets more appealing.

Touch is available on all Wacom Intuos Pro and Cintiq Pro tablets. And their Cintiq Pro 24 have both touch and non-touch versions, which is optional.

Wacom tablets with touch capabilities include Wacom Intuos Pro S/M/L, Wacom one 13 touch, Wacom Movink 13, Wacom Cintiq Pro 16, Wacom Cintiq Pro 17, Wacom Cintiq Pro 22, Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 touch, and Wacom Cintiq Pro 27, and Wacom Cintiq Pro 32.

Touch or No Touch? Are the Wacom “touch” tablets worth it?

The multi-touch features of your wacom intuos pro graphics tablet or cintiq pro pen display enable you to interact with a computer using only your fingertips on the surface.

You can use touch as you would on any other Mac or Windows device. Touch is activated whenever you touch the tablet in the active area or screen.

You can customize one, two, three, four and five finger gestures in driver settings to fit into your own workflow.

Windows or Mac operating system will pass the gesture to each application. If the application supports that gesture, it will be activated.

I have the Cintiq pro 24 with touch. I definitely find it useful for zooming in, scrolling and rotating the canvas in Photoshop, CSP, Corel Painter, and Rebelle 6 but that’s about it.

I can confirm that touch points don’t respond as quickly as other touch devices like ipad. Occasional multitouch glitch, Palm rejection doesn’t work most of the time, tap to click never worked.

It’s certainly not worth $500 extra dollars imo but touch in a pen display can be a great addition to workflow. touch navigation alone (for pan, rotate, and zoom) can frequently be useful.

Ultimately it comes down to how you like to work. If you already draw without touch, you probably won’t miss it. If you currently draw with touch, it’ll likely feel like an expensive downgrade.

How to Turn on or off the touch fnction?

You can turn on or off the touch capabilities in the wacom driver settings.

Open Wacom desktop Center.

Select your device in the Devices sidebar.

In the main content area, select Touch & gesture settings. You will proceed to Wacom Tablet Properties.

On the Touch Options tab, you can optionally select a Touch Input setting: Enable all touch input, Disable touch input except for On-screen shortcuts, and Disable all touch input.

Note: On Windows, select the Touch Options or My Gestures tab. On macOS, select the Standard Gestures or My Gestures tab.

On some devices, you can turn touch on and off via a slider switch on the device. for example, On a wacom intuos pro, the slider switch is next to the power button.

How to customize the touch function of Wacom?

With touch turned on, settings for touch behavior can be modified in Wacom Tablet Properties.

To change settings, open Wacom Desktop Center. Select the appropriate tablet from My Devices.

Select Touch Settings, adjust the speed for Pointers, Scrolling, and Double-Tap on the Touch Options tab.

Enable or disable Special Gestures on the Standard Gestures tab.

On the My Gestures tab, three, four and five finger gestures, unique to Wacom devices, can be customized. Just like express keys, and pen buttons.

For any gestures drop-down, select behavior, or to find a keystroke, for a quick shortcut.

Another example is Open/Run. Select Open/Run from the list, then select the Browse button.

Navigate to an application or file to open, with that gesture.

Then select OK, now using that gesture on the tablet will open that application.

Why is touch not working on my Wacom tablet?

If you wacom Touch function does not work. You can simple enable touch by pressing a slider switch on the device that is set to Touch On.

If you can’t find the slider switch, you can also open the Tablet Properties, click on the Touch icon, and go to the Standard Gestures, My Gestures, or Touch Options tab. Be sure the Enable Touch option is selected.

Conclusion

The multi-touch capability of wacom is the standout feature compared to other drawing tablet brands, letting you use your hands to navigate the tablet or display alongside the stylus.

Other budget graphics tablet brands rarely offer this feature, and the few models that support touch function also perform very poorly.

A big part of the price tag is that touch function, so if you’re happy without it, you might want to consider the non-touch wacom models or a different tablet brand altogether.

For most artists, It’s not really necessary to have touch because most of the time they’re going to have the other hand on the keyboard for shortcuts.

If you must have touch, go ahead, wacom is almost the only choice when it comes to drawing tablets!

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