Magic Trackpad text input

Hi I've been using my trackpad sort of like a remote control while watching movies etc on my Mac. I was wondering if there is any way to input simple text using the trackpad when the keyboard is out of reach.
I have seen a few things that come close like the Mobee Numpad skin or the Inklet stylus app but nothing that can input text with just your fingers. I have also seen mentions of handwriting recognition but from what I can tell it only exists for chinese? If it worked for english that would do the trick or, alternately a smartphone-like text input method would work also (Swype/Touchpal etc.)

As far as I know you always need a graphics tablet and a pen for English. See
http://mac.appstorm.net/reviews/utilities/how-to-use-ink-your-macs-built-in-hand writing-recognition-feature/

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Magic Trackpad Text Select

Hi folks.
Just bought a Magic Trackpad. Seems quite nice. However some items I can't seem to find how to do.
I want to select text in AppleScript Editor, or any text editor for that matter.
Single finger double click, with finger up, selects a word. I want to select words. I also want to select text, character to character. How can these be done? Do I have to use the keyboard? That pretty much kills the need for a trackpad.
Cheers

I've tried pretty much all of these methods. I find the double tap a bit annoying as the software decides that there is a time out when you lift off the trackpad (with Drag Lock turned off) that means when I select text and drag it then sometimes the selection continues rather than the selected text moving.
3 fingers was just too inaccurate for me. I was about to revert to the mouse!
The I realized that if you use your thumb in a corner of the trackpad for left click it just works great. Clicking with your selection finger requires too much continued pressure to be accurate, but your thumb is perfect for this. The coordination between thumb and finger also means you don't accidentally move the cursor while clicking.
I think I was confused by the lack of a button, I just needed to realize that it is still effectively there! Now I click things by pushing my middle finger and select text using my thumb and my middle finger and everything is suddenly rosy again.

MAGIC TRACKPAD how to select text? There is no "mouse button" to hold down

The magic trackpad doesn't seem to have a "button" that can be held down while dragging (in order to select text etc).
I want to select text & then paste it into an input box (for example, Search).
Apple needs to add virtual Function Keys to the top of the MT, allowing you to turn on scripted functions related to selecting, dragging, copying, pasting etc.

Press down on the trackpad until it clicks.
Nope, the magic trackpad doesn't do this. That's the problem.
Huh, how odd. Mine does. Did Apple change the Magic Trackpad since I bought mine? Or maybe yours is defective?
The press-down-till-click is also used in either the left or right bottom corner to activate a right-click. Chosen in the trackpad preferences. Though I've gotten used to the two-finger tap for that instead.
Ted

Magic Trackpad: how to drag'n drop text?

I have a new Magic Trackpad but am having problems finding all the features my Magic Mouse has. How do I drag a selection of text? It seems reasonable that I should just hold down and drag the text, but nothing happens.

It was three months ago to the day that the update which caused all the problems with this input device was issued. Apple appear to be unwilling to acknowledge that such a problem even exists.

Magic Trackpad with Chinese writing input

Does the new Magic Trackpad work with OS X 10.6 Chinese writing input as on the Macbook Pro with multi-touch trackpad?
cheers.

The trick was to deselect all Chinese-input forms and reboot. Then it was available.
Just as a reminder, if you use spaces, you'll probably want to:
" go to: System/Library/Input Methods/, Find ChineseHandwriting.app
then open system preference, Exposé & Spaces, click on Spaces
then drag ChineseHandwriting.app into the application assignments
then set space to Every Space
Actually, that worked on my MacBook Pro, but it doesn't seem to have worked yet on my Mac Pro. Hmmm... Possibly have to reboot.

Problem with Magic TrackPad and Macbook Pro

I just bought the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Apple Magic TrackPad for my home desktop setup. I connect my Macbook Pro 13" (from august 2010) to a Dell U2410 screen.
Everything works perfectly for a while, but then the cursor starts jumping around on the screen when I use the Magic TrackPad. Now here comes the weird thing, if I open the lid on the Macbook just a few inches the jumping stops completely and the Magic TrackPad works perfectly again.
I have tried googling a bit and browsed these forums also - no luck finding a solution.
I have also tried connecting a USB mouse to the Macbook when the cursor started to jump around - no problem with the USB mouse. I have also tried a different Magic TrackPad that my friend also just have bought for his setup - same problem after a short time.
Everything is updated to the latest software and firmware.
Thank you in advance for your help.

I have the same problem with a Trackpad paired with a new Mac Mini just purchased in September. After a while, my trackpad also starts to exhibit behavior similar to those described by Hecro. The trackpad cursor feels frozen, or else it jumps around, often trying to stay away from or jump over any hyperlink in either text or graphic form on the page I am viewing.
I find that if I pick up the trackpad and hold it above my palm between my thumb on one side and my fingers on the other side — so there is no pressure on the clicking feet on the bottom of the trackpad — a "jumping" trackpad instantly becomes a "stable" trackpad. Put it back down on a surface and it starts jumping again.
Also, when it starts jumping or skipping, I also find that if I use one finger and bear down hard on the trackpad, it resumes being responsive.
I am filing a comment about this on Apple's feedback forum at www.apple.com/feedback at the advice of a Genius at the Apple Store at Cambridgeside in Cambridge, Massachusetts USA.

Can i use an Apple Magic Trackpad on Native windows 8.1

as title says. im trying to help my stepdad use a brand new Magic Trackpad on his Toshiba laptop, natively 8 and recently updated to 8.1. after all my researching i think its not possible at this time and the closest i came was http://www.labnol.org/software/apple-magic-trackpad-with-windows/14158/ and http://www.trackpadmagic.com/
i hope im not being blasphemous talkin about using this on this machine. (i hope it wont work and i can use it on my macbook.)
thanks for any input.
Spencer.

No, but you can use the Apple wireless keyboard.

Problem editing Word docs with Magic Trackpad

Hi--I'm a playwright working in Word. I recently purchased a magic trackpad. I'm having a tough time selecting text for cutting, copying, etc. I'll want to select a word or two but wind up getting the whole paragraph, an incomplete chunk, or nothing it all. It's frustrating because I'm used to moving fast. How can I make it behave like the good trackpad in my MacBook Pro? And where can I get a good explaination of the I-beam cursor. Different parts of it seem to do different things.
Boggled

I have the same problem with a Trackpad paired with a new Mac Mini just purchased in September. After a while, my trackpad also starts to exhibit behavior similar to those described by Hecro. The trackpad cursor feels frozen, or else it jumps around, often trying to stay away from or jump over any hyperlink in either text or graphic form on the page I am viewing.
I find that if I pick up the trackpad and hold it above my palm between my thumb on one side and my fingers on the other side — so there is no pressure on the clicking feet on the bottom of the trackpad — a "jumping" trackpad instantly becomes a "stable" trackpad. Put it back down on a surface and it starts jumping again.
Also, when it starts jumping or skipping, I also find that if I use one finger and bear down hard on the trackpad, it resumes being responsive.
I am filing a comment about this on Apple's feedback forum at www.apple.com/feedback at the advice of a Genius at the Apple Store at Cambridgeside in Cambridge, Massachusetts USA.

Magic Trackpad - Show Trackpad Handwriting

I just bought a Magic Trackpad for my mac mini and quickly install it without a problem.
However when I try to use the "show trackpad handwriting" by either pressing ctlshiftspace or click that on the menu bar, the "grey area" is just not showing up and therefore I cannot write any chinese characters at all. I try to install the update and restart my computer and it works again. But somehow after a while, when I press ctlshiftspace again they grey does not show up again.
Can anyone help me?

I go the same problem.....at iMac 27
Beside log off, and force quit finder.
You can alos turn off and then on the chinese input in system preference.
The chinese input box of Magic Track pad will appear again.
Wish apple can fix this......

How do you select multiple words using a Magic Trackpad?

I know how to select multiple words with my mouse, but cannot figure out how to do it using my new Magic Trackpad. Here's the deal:
Let's say you want to select "cannot figure out how to" in the sentence above. With my mouse, I'd place the cursor somewhere over the word "cannot," double-left-click and keep holding the button down. Then, dragging to the right, it would select each word in its entirety as I moved along the sentence. I do this all the time since it is a very quick way to select text.
Okay, so how do you do this with the Magic Trackpad?
I try a similar behavior, but it doesn't work. If I double-tap on "cannot," for example, one of two things happens. Either only the word "cannot" is highlighted and dragging does nothing to highlight more text. Or, if I'm quicker with the drag (aka swipe) right, it will select one character at a time starting from the cursor position when I double-tapped and not entire words, as I want.
I'm stumped. Anyone?

Jeffrey,
The only good way seems to be by using the physical click on the Trackpad. Double physical click then drag. Much the way it's done on the mouse.
Regards
Captfred

Gnome 3.2 - Bluetooth - Magic Trackpad autoconnect problem

Hi everyone!
I recently bought an Apple Magic Trackpad and still am trying to get it working properly. Here is the thing. First of all: once it is working it does its job until I reboot. The functionality persists over suspending for several days.
But as soon as I have got to do a reboot everything is hard to get in place. At first I had problems connecting my trackpad at all after a reboot via blueman. Sometimes the whole machine would freeze after trying to connect my trackpad with my dongle. Often I have got to plug it out and back in to get it working several times and some wild clicking in blueman to connect to the input-service of the trackpad.
Now I found out something rather strange. When I keep the dongle out of my machine while booting and until I have my keyring unlocked and the plug it in, the trackpad connects within a second and everything is workin flawlessly. So what is the deal over here? Is there any way I can make my machine use the dongle right from start without having got to plug the dongle in and out at every weekly reboot?
I already tried the hints in the wiki for auto-connecting a device but this rendered my trackpad useless and the pc wasn't connecting at all.
Thanks in advance for any advice!

Mm, I suppose it could be. I'm using
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 3300 Graphics (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 0217
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
Memory at fe9f0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Memory at fe800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
Kernel modules: fglrx, radeon
on this machine (lspci -v from my linux mint installation running gnome 2.*). it didn't have a problem with the open source drivers on gnome 3.0, nor fglrx on gnome 2.* and kde4 works great to. strange ...
i'll try out some stuff from testing.
Last edited by edta (2011-10-04 09:11:50)

Magic trackpad cursor position trouble

I'm finding that quite often after I position the cursor in a text field (like, say, anywhere in a text editor like TextWrangler or in xcode, or in the URL field of a browser, and then I start typing, the characters appear at the previous cursor position. If I stop typing to figure out what just happened, the cursor is still in the right position, and if I continue typing the text will appear in the right place, but the text I just typed is in the wrong place.
Anyone else?

I have the same issue, but my mouse is turned off. I put the pad off to the side just to make sure. I just tried removing my mouse from the Bluetooth preferences. I've never had trouble with the mouse jumping before, but I do with the Magic Trackpad.

Magic trackpad won't come on

I leave my computer on & when I wake it up the magic trackpad won't turn on for about 10 to 15 minutes. Batteries were changed & computer was turned off & on. Any suggestions?

Hello esmeralda724,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! I understand that you are experiencing issues with your Magic Trackpad after waking your computer from sleep. Have you tried clicking the Trackpad in an attempt to wake it up? Check out the following resource for more information:
Wireless input devices: Bluetooth frequently asked questions - Apple Support
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT3887
9. After my computer starts up or wakes from sleep, when will the wireless devices become active?
Wireless devices are usually available a few moments after the computer completes the startup process. After waking from sleep, Apple Magic Mouse and Apple Wireless Keyboard (2009) should be available right away. Other wireless devices can take up to 5 seconds to be recognized when waking from sleep. You may need to click a button on the wireless mouse once or twice to wake it up.
Some Bluetooth devices—such as audio headsets—may disconnect to conserve the devices battery power after no audio or data is present for a certain amount of time. In such cases, you may need to push a button on the device or headset to make it active again. Check the documentation that came with your device for more information.
Cheers,
Matt M.

Need help with the Magic Trackpad

I really need help with my Magic Trackpad. I just got it in the mail yesterday and when I was trying to set it up, it's not responding to the "one click." In the TrackPad Settings, I managed to turn off the Secondary Click and just have the Single Click checkbox turned on. How I managed that was double clicking on the bottom right side of the trackpad, but that's if I'm lucky enough for that even to respond. I have also tried to turn off my Mac and turning it back on with the trackpad on hoping it would just turn on the default settings. This is really starting to get frustrated and I know the Magic Trackpad is really cool on fun to use because I used it plenty of times I the Apple Store. Now I do know that all the motion gestures work, the only problem I'm having is the clicking mechanism.

The clicking mechanism is located in the lower left or right corner of the trackpad, for single-click select, or secondary (menu) select, respectively. You can also configure single finger tap to select or double-finger tap for the alternate menu selection. Watch the trackpad preference videos by clicking on each setting text.
Here are my System Preference settings for the Magic Trackpad.
Point & Click
Everything checked but three finger drag.
Secondary click configured to click or tap with two fingers.
Scroll & Zoom
Everything checked
More Gestures
Everything checked but App Exposé

The "Magic" Trackpad

Am I the only one who finds the Macbook Pro trackpad to be completely useless? I was looking forward to using all the neat multi-touch gestures when I first got my MBP but now I'm struggling just to use it as a normal trackpad.
Pinching and rotating was nice at first but after a while, the accidental input got in the way of productivity. It got to the point where the trackpad was either too sensitive or not sensitive enough so I disabled those actions altogether. Also, it was never as precise as I needed it to be. If I tried rotating an object 90˚, I would only be able to rotate it to 89˚ or 91˚.
Now, even simple manipulation is becoming a chore. Sometimes the object that I'm dragging is released prematurely, even though my finger is still pushing down on the trackpad. Soft clicking (tapping on the trackpad) is often too sensitive.
The good news is that these are all software/firmware issues. In the meantime, if anyone has at least a temporary fix, I would appreciate it.
Thanks

The Pinch Open & Close feature can easily be turned off (I keep it turned off most of the time), and for rotating images, virtually every program that can display them can rotate them exactly 90° or 180° with one click on a button or in a menu. There's no reason to use the trackpad for precision rotations. It sure is great for in-between, casual rotations, though.
It took me about two weeks to get used to the multitouch trackpad when I got my MBP, and now I can't believe I ever got along without it. When I bought a 27" Cinema Display recently, I got a Magic Trackpad with it, and without changing a single trackpad setting, it automatically just worked perfectly with the huge new screen. I used to use a graphics tablet for photo retouching, but I can do it just as precisely with the Magic Trackpad and have that much less clutter on my desk. And when I'm on the go, there's no readjustment to using the built-in trackpad: the transition from one trackpad to the other is completely seamless and transparent. I don't even notice the difference.

Magic Trackpad text input

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