Now after having used an Acer Chromebook cp713 for many years I turned back to the Surface Book 3, as I did like the screen very much in the time. All works fine but the virtual keyboard in combination with the stylus.
Using it as a tablet (with Pageflip) the action of the pen with writing text annotations is weird. Making a text annotation with my fingers is fine, text box comes up, virtual keyboard appears, all fine. With the stylus the virtual keyboard will appear only the first time, after that, I only get the small vertical line to start writing. No keyboard, no handwriting box. If I manipulate the stylus and keyboard icons in the taskbar the virtual keyboard will come up sometimes, and sometimes not.
I did my research to the issue and did not find a solution. There is the contribution of Alan Evans, unfortunately this did not work for me. Whatever settings I take for the virtual keyboard the problem persists. There is also a video of Elizabeth Knaub, with a Surface Boom 3, but for me it works different. Sometimes the handwriting box comes up and then I can change that to the keyboard. However this is not really convenient way to make quickly annotations. Finally there is a suggestion to turn of the InkWorkspace by an register edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnJe4hDAPcQ, also no succes.
Does somebody recognize the issue and hopefully has a tip for me?
I've helped other users with this in the past. You need to basically disable handwriting to text in the OS settings I believe. I know there is a setting for this on Android devices, but I can't remember if there is a setting for it on Windows (I would sure hope so). I'll have to go through the settings on my Surface Pro to see if I can find something relevant.
(02-11-2026, 04:11 AM)Zubersoft Wrote: I've helped other users with this in the past. You need to basically disable handwriting to text in the OS settings I believe. I know there is a setting for this on Android devices, but I can't remember if there is a setting for it on Windows (I would sure hope so). I'll have to go through the settings on my Surface Pro to see if I can find something relevant.
Mike
Hi Michael,
thanks for the quick reaction. I did read through the older posts and did not find a solution yet. I'll try to be more specific.
I copied the settings I have for the virtual keyboard, unfortunately my surface book is installed in Dutch. The settings use box handwritten messages or screen keyboard to insert text in I hit a text field with my pen does not remain on "Always" and returns back to in case no fysical keyboard is connected. Maybe I should reinstall windows on the machine and see if that changes this behaviour.
In case you have another suggestion this would be welcome,
regards, Joop
You absolutely need to deselect that "Handgeschreven tekst gebruiken om tekst in te voeren" setting. That is exactly what I was mentioning. If you disable that, then it should always display the virtual keyboard for entering text.
02-13-2026, 05:44 AM (This post was last modified: 02-13-2026, 05:57 AM by JoopB.)
Unfortunately it does not change the situation a lot (Picture 5).
I did find some logic, when I click the T to insert text sometimes an input box appears and sometimes not. This depends on the status of the Pen symbol on the bottom bar. If I hover over it and see Pen, no input screen will come up, see picture with only Pen (Picture 3).
In case I see the small bar with a few items (Picture 1), such as the snip tool, the input screen will come up. Sometimes with the Handwriting tool (Picture 4), even if I have the Use handwritten text on Off. Sometimes the keyboard comes up (Picture 2), it seems completely random.
I did do the reinstall, before it was actually better; the handwriting box would not come up anymore.
I would not know what other setting to change.
02-13-2026, 03:09 PM (This post was last modified: 02-13-2026, 03:10 PM by Zubersoft.)
I'm not sure what else to recommend. I'll have to run some additional tests on my Surface Pro 8 to see if I encounter any issues. I'm not sure if it's different from the Surface Book 3 in regards to this.
In case you would give it a try: the first time I make an annotation, I always get the virtual keyboard, the second time, e.g. after erasing my first edit, no keyboard or handwriting box will come up and I need to start hovering over the pen symbol. Apparently the status of this feature changes with closing the annotation. Maybe that could help in finding the root cause for this.
I've been trying a few more things as suggested in various fora, but I do not get it to work normally. In other applications, such as notepad, browsers, input fields, OpenOffice it actually works fine. The virtual keyboard pops up when I want to start writing. Somehow the operation with Mobile sheets is problematic. If I just use my finger it works fine, virtual keyboard pops up all the time. If I touch the arrows to move the annotation up/down, right/left, the keyboard disappears. If I try to write with the pen, first time is ok, but second time the keyboard will not appear.
Could you have a look if this behaviour is similar on your Surface Pro?
I just wanted to post to follow up and say that I definitely see this issue on my Surface Pro device now. I'm not sure what changed or when it changed, but it seems that Windows just isn't displaying the virtual keyboard the second time around even though my code is requesting it in the exact same way. So I'm experimenting now to see if I can get around this weird problem in Microsoft's framework.
The fix was much simpler than I realized. At some point, Microsoft added a setting to their text input control to disable the handwriting window. I disabled that and everything works as expected now. I have the fix in place for the next update.
02-25-2026, 04:35 AM (This post was last modified: 02-25-2026, 04:35 AM by JoopB.)
Hi Mike,
I already thought this would be one of those things you have to live with. Thanks for trying, finding a solution and I'm looking forward to the update ,
,