Dual Screen Setup with your drawing tablet is a great thing that you can use one screen to work and use another one to do something else like watching video.
If you are confused about this and don’t know how to set it up, then you have come to the right place.
In this article, I will show you how to display 2 screens with your non-screen drawing tablet at the same time and choose one of them as your working screen.
How to display 2 screens with drawing tablet?
This tutorial is suitable for screenless drawing tablets such as wacom intuos, huion inspiroy, XPPen Deco and tablets from other brand.
Step 1: Select Mirror Mode
Connect your second display to the computer via HDMI or USB-C Cable, and refer to the following display modes to set an additional monitor on Windows.
1. Duplicate mode: What is shown on your computer screen will be duplicated to the second display, called Mirror display on MacOS.
2. Extend mode: Your computer will be extended and displayed on two separate monitors, with each one showing different parts of the interface.
On Windows, Click the Start menu at the bottom-left corner of your desktop and launch the Control Panel by clicking Settings > System > Display.
For a seamless multi-monitor setup, adjust the ‘Multiple displays’ dropdown to either ‘Extend these displays’ or ‘Duplicate these displays,’ depending on your needs.
For your purpose, I recommend yo use Extend mode. Just change drop down from Duplicate to Extend, arrange displays in the box on top like you have them arranged IRL and press apply, you can now drag different windows between displays and use the full screen real estate of both. Most of the time your default monitor is 1.
Step 2: Select Work Screen
Now that you’ve extended your display, please follow the steps below to set up your drawing tablet’s work area so your pen can work on your display:
To use a non-screen drawing tablet with dual screens, ensure you have the latest drivers installed. Then you can open up the tablet driver settings, Navigate to mapping setting, and specify which screen is the work area.
Fortunately! many newer tablets (e.g., Wacom, Huion, XPPen, stc) have a built-in ‘mapping’ feature within their driver that allows you to set the tablet to only correspond to one (area) of your screens.
Once installed, follow these steps:
1. Open the Wacom/Huion/XPPen tablet driver settings.
2. In the settings, look for an option related to screen mapping or display area.
3. Choose the specific screen you want to use with the tablet.
4. Adjust the mapping or display area to match the size and position of your chosen screen.
This configuration should allow you to use the Wacom/Huion/XPPen tablet on your preferred screen in a dual-screen setup. Then you can use the other screen for other things!
What’s better, the modern drawing tablet drivers allows you to use the “Pen Tablet Properties” menu in the Control Panel to select a limited work region.
How to use pen display tablet with Dual monitor ?
If you use a screen drawing tablet like wacom cintiq, then you will have 3 screens in total. This is rare but still possible. You just need to specify your display drawing tablet as the working screen under extend mode.
Conclusion
Using 2 screens with your drawing tablet enhances your workflow by providing additional screen real estate for multitasking and detailed art work.
You can quickly switch between applications without crowding your primary monitor. Or you can just put a relaxing video on the side while you draw!
That’s all there is to it! I hope this has helped you, it only took me three and a half hours to figure it out myself.
every drawing tablet i’ve ever used is highly customizable like that so i’m sure you can adjust it to work with your needs.
Explore More: Good Cheap Graphics Tablets for Beginners Under $100
