Microsoft Surface Pen Compatibility

[Nate the great]

Does anyone know how compatible the Kobo Stylus is with the Microsoft Surface Pen?

The thing is, I have an off-brand Chinese laptop which supposedly has a pressure sensitive touchscreen, but it requires a Microsoft Surface Pen. I have a Kobo Stylus, and it does work with this screen - but doesn't show any sign of the pressure sensitive feature.

I can't tell if it's because the screen doesn't actually have this feature, or if the Kobo Stylus doesn't support the feature.

Does anyone know?

[Quoth]

The Kobo pen seems to be similar or identical to the MS Surface pen. I have two different 3rd party MS Surface pen models and button layout & battery & feel is identical. All take different tips.

The Kobo (Libra 2 (only sketch pad), Sage, Elipsa and Elipsa 2) seem to have a threshold set for pressure (quite low) so "ink" is either on or off.

The ones I've bought on Amazon keep becoming unavailable! Three Adrawpen in 2022 and one other make Feb 2023.

Try different software on the Laptop? Only some specialist sketching sw will show pressure. Try The Gimp as it can vary width, colour or density with pen pressure, if the pen and driver support it.
I've one Linux annotation package that annoyingly is pressure sensitive so that normal pressure is faint and you have to write hard (Wacom) for regular annotation. Mostly for annotation you want normal pressure and on/off ink.

Edit:
For Wacom (both kinds), Apple Pencil and MS Surface/Kobo Pen it isn't the screen that's pressure sensitive, though it may also be touch sensitive (IR, capacitive or resistive), but digitiser hardware that communicates with the pen. The pressure sensing is done in the pen and transmitted to the digitiser. In the case of Wacom the pen is also powered from the host, going back even to 1990s and serial port drawing panels. USB wacom simply used serial over USB. Earlier Wacom pens for laptops used internal serial or serial over USB interfaces. The digitiser is usually behind the screen.

I did once have a digitiser tablet with no graduated pressure (called Tabby). The tip literally was a small on/off microswitch. It was dreadful to use and the Kobo Pen doesn't act like that on a Kobo. Also the two models of MS Pen behave identically on the Elipsa, Sage and Libra 2 Sketch pad to the official Kobo Pen.


Currently about £25 on Amazon UK for 1024 level MS Surface 3rd party pens. I've two "bookmarked" just now in my not-books Wish list.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The Kobo pen seems to be similar or identical to the MS Surface pen. I have two different 3rd party MS Surface pen models and button layout & battery & feel is identical. All take different tips.

I should probably add that this is a Windows laptop, and that I tested the Kobo Stylus in MS Paint. It was recognized, and both the buttons worked (one erased, just like your second mouse button would).

Originally Posted by Quoth

Try different software on the Laptop? Only some specialist sketching sw will show pressure. Try The Gimp as it can vary width, colour or density with pen pressure, if the pen and driver support it.
I've one Linux annotation package that annoyingly is pressure sensitive so that normal pressure is faint and you have to write hard (Wacom) for regular annotation. Mostly for annotation you want normal pressure and on/off ink.

Trying it now, with no luck.

Thanks!

[Quoth]

See if there is an alternate driver for the digitiser. Likely the driver is simulating left mouse button with pen pressure?

Also try a Linux Live USB stick boot, though out of the box Debian didn't do screen rotation of touch correctly on the Windows 10 Tablet (touch only) or with Linux Mint on Lenovo X201 laptop/tablet (rotating & folding touch screen with Wacom digitiser), though there is supposedly a script to fix it for the X201, but I've not bothered.

I might not have used MS Paint since NT 4.0 & Win 98 era? I used Aldus Photostyler, then Paint Shop Pro, 4 to 7 before switching to The Gimp in Nov 2016 (switch to non-floating GUI, classic icons, system theme and non-grouped tools for a more familiar experience. The defaults are mad.)

[305869]

Wow I had no idea the Surface Pen worked on a Kobo. I decided to try it and it worked perfectly on my Kobo Libra 2, for like 3 minutes. Then it stopped detecting it.

edit: it was detected again after being in sleep mode for a few minutes. Exiting KOReader seems to make it undetectable for a little while but otherwise works perfectly, with pressure sensitivity in the sketchpad, and the eraser being detected as a thicker brush.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by 305869

Wow I had no idea the Surface Pen worked on a Kobo. I decided to try it and it worked perfectly on my Kobo Libra 2, for like 3 minutes. Then it stopped detecting it.

edit: it was detected again after being in sleep mode for a few minutes. Exiting KOReader seems to make it undetectable for a little while but otherwise works perfectly, with pressure sensitivity in the sketchpad, and the eraser being detected as a thicker brush.

Officially the Libra 2 has no Pen support. Unsurprising that KOReader upsets it.
The Sketchpad is hidden on Sage and Elipsa, but search devmodeon adds it in Beta features. Not useful caompared to Basic Notebook, except the saved sketches are in "My Books".
I tried the Kobo pen and the MS pen on the Libra2 when someone mentioned the Sketchpad worked. The original Libra doesn't even use it as capacitive touch, too fine a point. The rubbery tip "dumb stylus" for phones does work of course.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Try different software on the Laptop? Only some specialist sketching sw will show pressure. Try The Gimp as it can vary width, colour or density with pen pressure, if the pen and driver support it.
I've one Linux annotation package that annoyingly is pressure sensitive so that normal pressure is faint and you have to write hard (Wacom) for regular annotation. Mostly for annotation you want normal pressure and on/off ink.

Can you name a few other apps to try?

I went out and bought an actual Surface Pen (it turns out the BB website was wrong, and they do have it in store). I haven't been able to figure out how to use pressure to do anything in GIMP.

At this point I don't think this laptop has the promised feature. (And I can't install a new driver; it's running stock Windows 10, which has already been updated.)

[Quoth]

With "The GIMP"
Go Edit -> Input Device (to see what there is and what it can do)
Select the Pencil or Brush
Then on the control panel that lets you select layer, pattern etc, find Mapping matrix and tick box for Opacity or Size (on side) and Pressure (1st across top).

If it doesn't work with The GIMP it doesn't have pressure exposed by the Windows Device Driver, but by default there might not be a mapping for pressure.

If there is no stylus input pressure under Input Devices, then the flaw is the device driver for the digitizer, not the pen.
Go Windows Device Manager and find the Digitiser and see what it's using. My experience with Win7 and Win 10 was that the Wacom didn't work and the external USB Sound Blaster didn't work because "Windows" automatically loaded the wrong drivers. Manually changing them in Device Manager worked.
I also had sound and SD card slot fail due to wrong drivers after an MS update to Win10 on a tablet. Only browsing to "Windows Old" (or something like that) and manually selecting the old driver worked.

GIMP is very configurable, so screen shots may or may not be helpful. Let me know.

[Nate the great]

It's still not working, but I did get a step further.

I now know that MS says you have to pair the Surface Pen with your device using Bluetooth. (So while the Kobo Stylus has similar features, they are not the same.)

[Quoth]

That's a Plus feature Surface Pen. The BT is for One Note. The actual pen functions don't use BT.

The earlier SP for One Note had a separate button cell for the BT.

So only need to pair a One Note compatible Surface pen. No BT at all in the standard Surface pen!

Neither of the MS Surface Pens I have have the BT feature, which has an extra button only used by BT!
Crazy obsession and design flaw with One Note.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Quoth

That's a Plus feature Surface Pen. The BT is for One Note. The actual pen functions don't use BT.

The earlier SP for One Note had a separate button cell for the BT.

So only need to pair a One Note compatible Surface pen. No BT at all in the standard Surface pen!

Neither of the MS Surface Pens I have have the BT feature, which has an extra button only used by BT!
Crazy obsession and design flaw with One Note.

Wow do they not make this clear.

My Surface Pen merely says "Surface Pen" on the box, with no other model name. (Based on the help pages, i think it's the "Surface Pen Pro".)

[Quoth]

Plus = Pro = BT feature purely for One Note!

[Quoth]

Unlike the Wacom-powered Surface Pen, it requires two batteries: one AAAA battery for stylus operation, and two size 319 coin cell batteries for the top button [BT multifunction & One Note].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pen

The original and 2nd Surface used Wacom, hence not listed on Amazon Ads for 3rd party pens. Only more expensive 3rd party pens have the BT.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09G5R9YJZ/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09XVMR45Y/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Y9QSK8D/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B1CS1XK2/ Rechargeable, so 300 hrs use vs 1500 of an AAAA cell, but the Apple Pencil, according to Wikipedia is only 12 hours, which doesn't sound correct.

This is the 3rd party Apple Pencil I bought for a relative's iPad so they could try Nebo handwriting conversion, like the sibling's Sage and 3rd party pen has. Very similar, but free Nebo has less features than Kobo bundled version.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0936HQ8T9/

[Nate the great]

I'm going to throw in the towel and ask the seller/manufacturer.

[Quoth]

Did you go to Device Manager?

There should be a digitiser, maybe under Human Interface Devices.

Find a suitable driver online and download

Go to Update Driver -> Browse my computer for drivers.
The "Search automatically for drivers" is mostly no use if there is a driver installed.

Sometimes you have to Uninstall

Edit:
Just added a Wacom USB digitiser tablet to a Win10 and it's automatically installed wrong driver. Only the buttons work!