WinInk To WinTab

Did you buy a nice new Widows tablet with a pressure stylus and plan to be able to do all your graphic work on it. Did you see a video of someone review said tablet use Photoshop and the stylus worked. Did you then install Photoshop CS6 to realize that the stylus pressure doesn't work. Well that is because the reviewer was using Photoshop CC which uses WinInk but your older version still only uses WinTab.

So would you like to be able to use the older programs you have? Yes, well lets go on.

The key to this is using the WinTab drivers that are designed for the Microsoft Surface. But my Tablet isn't a Surface? Yes, I know that is why you are here, but this should be the thing to makes it work.

This for works with the WinTab 1.20 version. Get the right bit version for your tablet.

Search for: Surface WinTab Driver (make sure to get from the actual Microsoft download site if available for your computers safety)

Link: Download Surface Wintab Driver

Now install it. It sometimes wants to Restart your compute. If you doesn't need to restart your computer now it comes time to test to see if this works. So open up your art program and see if the pressure works. (Note: some programs are more adaptive an may not need closed and restarted to see the effect but many others do. So if you have issues restart your art program.)

Did it work?

• Yep, great.:) (Well now you are done enjoy using your art programs)
• Nope :( (Well I'm sorry I could't help you. Look in the notes for other things to peruse.)
• It Works but the pen input is off. :/ (Well lets try to solve that.)

Using your pen across the screen how far is it off?

If it is just a little bit make sure you calibrate your stylus under the windows pen calibration. FYI: The Windows pen calibration effects WinInk which in turn affects WinTab.

If your pen input is off more than just a little bit this is where it gets tricky. The most likely cause for this is the touch panel driver for your tablet.

So lookup in Device Manage what it is, and then look up and see if you have the latest drivers for it. If not get them and install them.

Did it help?

• Yep Great. :) Good your done!
• Nope. :/ Well now we got to try to configure your touch panel drive. And this is where this gets a really open ended problem because there are so many different touch panels and touch panel drivers and how they are configured. Best overall advice I can give check in the control panel for any configuration then, check under device manger if setting can be adjusted. Check installation paths for any configuration files. And worst case editing the actual installer. Remember make backups of the originals and the changes you make!

If your touch panel is a Goodix I can give you some help. I have a CHUWI HI13 which uses a Goodix GT9110p touch panel controller but this method looks to be universal to most Goodix touch panel controllers. In the installer for the driver their is a file named TouchSettings.gt In their there are two lines PhysicalXsize and PhysicalYsize. Note what these values are and compare them to your actual screen resolution. In my case the goodix physical size was 3072 x 1800 vs actual screen resolution of 3000 x 2000. The clue I my case was Y access as their was no offset in the pen input and realizing the down scaling factor and some playing I came to the PhysicalXsize being 2672 with the PhysicalYsize staying the same.

As with any any unorthodox solution to computes I can’t support or warrant this solution in any way. I’ll try to help you if I can but there are no guarantees.

Notes:

• I have spent alot of time over the past 3 weeks trying and figuring things out that somehow could convert WinInk into Wintab. Somethings give a little hope if this method fails that could be pursued but their would be a lot of effort to make them work.
• There is one person out their that made a WinTab emulator for SAI. I personally could not get it to work reliably without pen input sparing out and/or charshing SAI. Pursue as necessary with caution. Perlfu WinTab Emulator
• I know for sure that the WinTab 1.17 for the surface does not work' so at some point something changed in making this work.
• Other version of WinTab for different systems may or may not at all work and many other version of WinTab are really specific if they don't detect their exact hardware they refuse to work. Also many of them don't have this conversion.
• As far as I can tell all of the Surfaces use the exact same WinTab drives so it shouldn't matter which one you download.

Question I'll answer before people have to ask:

• Does the Microsoft Surface use a Goodix Touchpanel or something which is why this is compatible with your thing?

As far as I can tell no. So that is why I'm assuming that somewhere in their the conversion between WinInk and WinTab.

• Is this safe?

It's as safe as an official driver from Microsoft can be. If your talking about trying to editing the configuration of your touch panel that is a bit more iffy.

• Why didn't you just return your tablet and get something else?

While I could have, I would have had to pay 20% of the cost of my tablet as a return surcharge and even then I don't know what I would have gotten instead.

• Why don't you just go use newer drawing/graphic programs?

If you want to help me buy newer programs be my guest. Otherwise I'll sit here using decades old programs that still work great!

Any question or problems just ask. I’ll try to help you if I can but there are no guarantees.

SerpentOfTheNight