Is there a way to disable automatic inking when using a pen with Office 2016?

ALToronto · Feb 25, 2016

Some moron at MS decided that anyone who uses a pen on a tablet just wants to draw. The most recent update to Office is infuriating - I can no longer use a pen to select text or a cell, or auto-fill in Excel, or copy and paste. Any time the pen is detected over the content portion of a document or a spreadsheet (and probably a presentation, too), it automatically becomes a freehand drawing tool.

And Office Help tries to present it as a desirable feature! And there doesn't seem to be a way to disable it - or is there an option I'm not seeing? If there is no way to disable this, can I go back to a previous version of Office?

TIA.

harmonyinfo · Feb 25, 2016

This used to be controlled using the Review button on the ribbon bar but I can't see how to do it after the latest update either. This doesn't seem to be very smart on Microsoft's part.

ALToronto · Feb 26, 2016

No, it's idiotic, and lots of people have complained about it on MS forums. Apparently MS is looking into it. In the meantime, I have an appointment at the nearest MS store to get help reverting to 2013.

Johan de Groot · Feb 27, 2016

I have got the same problem.
After 90 minutes on the phone with Microsoft (60 minutes trying to speak someone, 30 minutes technical support which really wanted to help me) they gave up - and just 5 minutes later I got an email:

"The issue described under this case has been identified to be related to Office Client Usability. This is out of Support Boundary for Office 365."

Removing the functionality to disablable draw/ink when using a tablet is now called 'usability'...

ALToronto · Mar 1, 2016

I reverted to 2013, so my Surface 3 is usable again. There is a lot of discussion about this 'feature' on MS community forums, and it will be addressed shortly. In the meantime, the best solution is to revert to 2013 and disable automatic updates.

Michelle Goshien · Mar 13, 2016

Finally there is a work-around to this issue!!!!

Go here and click on the Office Insiders program at the bottom. Once you download that you can use the stylus again to select instead of draw in Word!

BrickLeaf1 · Mar 17, 2016

Has anyone solved this?

This is why I will never trust MS again. I knew I was taking a gamble buying some half baked MS swill. I'm never getting another one of these again - will wait until Google release one that works well with MS Office and be done with them. Every other week it's something like this that makes it temporarily unusable. INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHANGE! I'm livid after learning that this was somehow intentional - but that's what I get for giving MS another chance, never again.

RJ DesignWorks · Apr 7, 2016

In Excel (Office 2016), I just went to File>Options>Advanced>Pen and checked "Use Pen to......."

I am Using a Surface Pro 3

PHuba · Apr 24, 2016

RJ DesignWorks said:
In Excel (Office 2016), I just went to File>Options>Advanced>Pen and checked "Use Pen to......."

Great, thanks. I found this option in Excel, Word and PowerPoint 2016 -
It doesn't seem to be needed in Publisher and Access 2016 (seems obvious for the latter).
What about OneNote? I'd appreciate deactivate inking in OneNote as well
Any idea?

ALToronto · May 23, 2016

PHuba said:
Great, thanks. I found this option in Excel, Word and PowerPoint 2016 -
It doesn't seem to be needed in Publisher and Access 2016 (seems obvious for the latter).
What about OneNote? I'd appreciate deactivate inking in OneNote as well
Any idea?

I don't think you can disable default inking in OneNote - it's the whole point of OneNote. Why not just use Word instead?

PHuba · May 28, 2016

ALToronto said:
I don't think you can disable default inking in OneNote - it's the whole point of OneNote. Why not just use Word instead?

I, personally, prefer OneNote as a Notebook (even if I use Word too for more word-processing activities).
I use OneNote as a replacement for Notepad available on all the platforms I am using (including iOS devices, desktops, phone, laptops, tablets) -
I particularly like the concept of pages (sub-pages and sections) in a single Notebook and the ability to send content from other applications to OneNote (print to, Edge integration, recently screenshot integration...) - as I use it on many device that do not support pen, it proves OneNote does NOT require a pen. And, therefore, the question remains, is there not a way to configure OneNote (as we can with Word, Excel) so that pen is used -by default- as a selection tool (like a mouse or your fingers) and -occasionally- as inking tool

nprsmith · Jun 10, 2016

Hi, for OneNote (on the Surface Pro 4) to disable inking, select the Type button on the top left hand corner of the Draw toolbar.

You can then select, tick check boxes etc. I haven't found a way to auto-disable this feature, but this is a simple enough action to take

If you then want to draw select a pen style from the toolbar.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,

PHuba · Jun 11, 2016

nprsmith said:
Hi, for OneNote (on the Surface Pro 4) to disable inking, select the Type button on the top left hand corner of the Draw toolbar.

Thanks for this information - are you speaking about the full fledged OneNote 2016 (not the mobile version)?
I am not quite sure what hou mean by the "Type button". My OneNote windows looks like attached screenshot (French version). I can get some Pen-selection behavior by activating the free selection mode but this will only work to select drawing elements, not for instance words in a text or an embedded picture in the text. Did I get it wrong?

Skoen · Jul 1, 2016

In Excel (Office 2016), I just went to File>Options>Advanced>Pen and checked "Use Pen to......."

Weird, I don't have that option in Word, PP or Excel... Just bought the 2016 package a few days ago... Any ideas?

PHuba · Jul 2, 2016

Skoen said:
Weird, I don't have that option in Word, PP or Excel... Just bought the 2016 package a few days ago... Any ideas?

Are you sure you look at the 2016 full version of the software not the mobile versions?
There exist for each a "standard" and a mobile version, see below (my Word 2016 version is 16.0.6925.1022)

Skoen · Jul 2, 2016

PHuba said:
Are you sure you look at the 2016 full version of the software not the mobile versions?
There exist for each a "standard" and a mobile version, see below (my Word 2016 version is 16.0.6925.1022)
View attachment 128128

Thx for the quick reply

. I'm using "Word 2016" and not Word mobile. However, my Word version is 16.0.6965.2063 after I updated... Still no option in advance concerning "pen" after I updated. I'm using a surface pro 4.

Edit: maybe it is because I bought the "Office home and student 2016" version instead of "Office 365"? I hope not.

Greg Byrom · Jul 12, 2016

Yes! I've found it, you CAN do this.
I'm sing OneNote 2013. If you go to File > Options > Advanced > Pen you will see the option "Automatically switch between inking, selecting, typing and panning" - switch this checkbox OFF (it's default is ON)

You will then be able to use the buttons on the ribbon toolbar as they are intended - instead of having it automatically switch every time the pen comes near the screen. The "Type" button then allows you to use the pen for selection of text etc. while clicking back on one of the pen colour/style boxes turns it back into a drawing tool.

Hope that solves ur problem!

PHuba · Jul 12, 2016

Greg Byrom said:
Yes! I've found it, you CAN do this.
I'm sing OneNote 2013. If you go to File > Options > Advanced > Pen you will see the option "Automatically switch between inking, selecting, typing and panning" - switch this checkbox OFF (it's default is ON)

Unfortunately this option seems to have disappeared (or moved but where?) in OneNote 2016.
This is the reason why I mentioned the solution proposed by RJ DesignWorks which works for Word, Excel -and from your poste, OneNote 2013 was not a solution for OneNote 2016. Thanks anyway.

Skoen · Jul 17, 2016

PHuba said:
Unfortunately this option seems to have disappeared (or moved but where?) in OneNote 2016.
This is the reason why I mentioned the solution proposed by RJ DesignWorks which works for Word, Excel -and from your poste, OneNote 2013 was not a solution for OneNote 2016. Thanks anyway.

That's weird, I have that ("Automatically switch..." ) option in OneNote 2016 under "advance", but not in Word 2016.. Is there any other way to enable auto-inking in Word 2016 using a pen?

PHuba · Jul 17, 2016

Skoen said:
That's weird, I have that ("Automatically switch..." ) option in OneNote 2016 under "advance", but not in Word 2016.. Is there any other way to enable auto-inking in Word 2016 using a pen?

That's weird indeed and I am getting lost. I also have a Office 365 Family (in French) edition probably the equivalent of Home & Student.
I have now release 16.0.7070.2026 (just installed latest updates) and I confirm, the only Advenced / Pen option I have in Word, Excel and Powerpoint is (translated from french) "By default, use pen to select and interract with content" - and this does the job - unless you explicitely select inking ribbon and inking function, the pen will behave mostly like the mouse. Unfortunately I cannot find this option in Acces (no issue, not important here) but not in OneNote which is more of a problem (other options are available but not helping in this context) - see bunch of snapshots below.