Gadgetory

the Microsoft Surface tablet bridges the gap between laptop and tablet but it makes a few usability sacrifices along the way I'm Donald Bell and on this how-to video I'm going to show you some easy ways to make the surface a little easier to use one place where this ten point six inch screen feels particularly cramped is in the traditional desktop view the text and icons are extremely tiny here so I suggest bumping it up by holding your finger on the screen for a few seconds selecting personalize then display here you can switch the overall size of things from the default small size up to medium or hit custom to scale things up even further I personally like how this thing looks at about a hundred and fifty percent hit apply and let the system sign you out log back in and you should see a big improvement no pun intended if you're not crazy about the touchscreen keyboard you can fiddle around with a few alternative options down here in the corner but there's an even cooler alternative keyboard that you can pull up with this trick from the Metro view swipe in from the right and hit settings then tap change PC settings here on the bottom select ease of access from the menu here on the left and you'll see an option for customizing what will happen when you hold down the windows button and the volume buttons at the same time from that drop-down menu select on-screen keyboard now whenever you hold down that Windows button in the volume button in that order you'll get an overlay keyboard that can resize and has a bunch of neat tricks like predictive text function keys and a fade button that allows you to glance at what's behind the keyboard now to close the keyboard just use the same windows volume key combo finally one of the best features of the surfaces that includes a basic preview version of Microsoft Office but you know it's better the final version and it's free for you to download if you know where to look from the Metro view swipe in from the right and tap search then type updates and then select settings from under the search box from the results on the left the link for install optional updates it says your system is up to date tap the link on the left to check for updates now it looks like I need a firmware update but I'm going to take the extra step here to click see all available updates and look what we have here a box to update Microsoft Office to the final version I can't say they made that easy to find but free is free so make sure it's checked and then hit install so there you go three tips that will improve your surface tablet experience head over to how to see Netcom for more tips like these you can also find more tips from me over on twitter i'm donald bell see you next time