Disable Touchpad While Writing Article Or Documentation In Ubuntu

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As a blogger, I spend the majority of my time writing articles and tutorials. One issue I’ve been having while typing is that my palm comes into contact with the touchpad, causing the cursor to move to another location on the screen or editor, causing my article to become jumbled. Sometimes I have to rethink and rewrite because many lines have been deleted as a result of this issue. But, at long last, I’ve discovered a solution to this problem. Here’s how you can make it right.

I’m sure if you type a lot, you’re familiar with this issue. You can’t change your typing style because it will definitely slow down your typing speed. But don’t worry, you can type while on the move without changing your typing style. You can disable the touchpad while using your keyboard by using a small and simple programme.

How To Disable Touchpad While Using Keyboard?

You can disable your touchpad while using a keyboard by installing a small app called Touchpad-Indicator. It’s a simple to use app that’s completely free and available for Ubuntu or Linux Mint. The app was made available through a PPA by the program’s developer, Lorenzo Carbonell. Here’s how to use your terminal application to install this app.

Open Terminal (CTRL + ALT + T) and add the PPA –

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao

Update the local repository cache and install the app –

$ sudo apt-get update$ sudo apt-get install touchpad-indicator

How To Use Touchpad-Indicator?

After you have installed Touchpad-Indicator, run it from the Ubuntu dash or application menu. Currently, I am using Peppermint OS so I need to open the menu to run the app.

Touchpad-Indicator starts in the system tray. So right click the icon and from here you can disable the touchpad, hide the touchpad-indicator icon, open settings, help and you can exit the app.

Open settings from the system tray. Here you can configure Touchpad-Indicator according to your needs.

  • Enable and set a shortcut for the app.
  • From the Actions tab you can set touchpad to disable when any mouse is plugged in. You can also set enable touchpad on exit, disable touchpad on exit, disable touchpad when Touchpad-Indicator starts and disable touchpad on typing.

The main feature of this app is the ability to disable the touchpad while typing. This option disables the touchpad while typing and re-enables it when you’re finished. You can also specify a time when the touchpad should be re-enabled after typing. I prefer a time of 1000 milliseconds.

  • You can enable Autostart the app when the laptop boots up in the General settings. You can also make the app start hidden, which means there will be no app icon in the system tray. The final option is to show notifications, which displays all notifications whenever changes are made to the touchpad.
  • You can configure the touchpad’s basic features, such as vertical scrolling, horizontal scrolling, circular scrolling, two fingers vertical scrolling, two fingers horizontal scrolling, and natural scrolling, using the touchpad configuration.

Finally the theme tab allows you to change the icon theme displayed in the system tray.

You are now finished configuring your touchpad for typing. There will be no more scribbles when you type now. If you type a lot, you should be using this app. It definitely saves you time! Enjoy!