Setting up portrait orientation on Wacom One / Intuos / Bamboo

This post is about modifying configuration files for Wacom drivers to have a Wacom One tablet function in portrait orientation despite the option not being exposed in configuration UI.

Update: apparently the same applies to Intuos and Bamboo product lines, likely for the entire "generation" of tablets using the same drivers.

Update 2: for One/Intuous, the newer version of driver (6.x) has these options exposed in UI.

By default, "Wacom Preferences" application for the product line only offers two landscape modes:

However, that is easily enough fixed. Driver also includes "Wacom Preference File Utility". It's a simple program that allows you to import/export your entire configuration as one big XML file:

So the discovery process is:

Export (Backup) the configuration to a file.
Change the orientation in Wacom Preferences.
Export the configuration again, to a different file.
Compare the changes between the two files.

For comparing changes, you would either use one of the common tools (searching "text diff online" brings up a number of browser-based ones), or something more specialized (BeyondCompare is my personal favorite).

For Wacom One configuration, altering the orientation setting changes a "LeftHandedMouse" setting at the start, a bunch of coordinates across the profile configuration, but, most importantly, this snippet:

        </MappingGroupArray>
        <Orientation type="integer">1</Orientation>
        <PenScroller type="map">
          <PenScrollerScale type="double">1</PenScrollerScale>
        </PenScroller>
      </ContextManager>

"Orientation" node' value changes from 1 to 3, which is a hint.

So, to change orientation to portrait, you open the exported tabletprefs file in any half-decent text/code editor (e.g. Notepad++ on Windows, or default text editor on OSX), search (Ctrl+F\Cmd+F) for <Orientation, and change the number on that line to 0 (LED area on the top) or 2 (LED area on the bottom):

Then you save the file and import (Restore) it via Wacom Preference File Utility.

Upon re-opening Wacom Preferences, the orientation on first tab will appear to be undefined,

but the rest of UI will display the new orientation accordingly:

(ideally you'd probably want to use vertical orientation with a vertical display though)

And that's it. To revert back to a landscape orientation, you can use the switch in Wacom Preferences; to switch between portrait orientations you would repeat the export-edit-import routine explained above.

Have fun!

21 thoughts on “Setting up portrait orientation on Wacom One / Intuos / Bamboo”

Works great!

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Absolutely amazing, thank you

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Shane on Jun 20, 2024 at 05:15 said:

hey how did you get this to work. i cant seem to import the xml file.

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Thanks!

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Hi! I have Intuos 2 with Windows 10. It works (only drivers) with Adobe Photoshop almost correctly. But neither Wacom Tablet Properties nor Wacom Tablet Preference File Utility work so I have no ability to tune up tablet. I suppose there is some way to edit tablet driver preferences without above mentioned programs. I have two monitors and tablet is expanded to common aria. It is very inconvenient. Sorry for my English.

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Vadim on Dec 3, 2020 at 19:41 said:

You could edit %APPDATA%\WTablet\Wacom_Tablet.dat by hand and restart the driver, but there’s a lot in there.

Finding a compatible version of the driver (probably 4.x or 5.x?) might be preferable.

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- Vladimir on Dec 4, 2020 at 14:43 said:
  
  Thank You! But how to find a compatible version of the drive while Intuos 2 is not supported by Wacom?
  
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- Vladimir on Dec 4, 2020 at 18:57 said:
  
  Dear Vadim! You are the best! I have Win 10 and Win 7 on my notebook. I just install and set my old Wacom using Win 7 then copy Wacom_Tablet.dat and WacomTouch.xml to the proper place of Win 10. Tablet settings became identical!
  
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I only see (I’ve used ‘Find’ etc this

5
0
5
3

Only orientation references are for the

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Mr on Apr 21, 2020 at 07:42 said:

5
0
5
3

Only

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- Miah on May 3, 2020 at 12:25 said:
  
  I think I know what you mean, if you “Find” only “orientation” then it shows mouse orientation a lot of times with value 5 a lot of times.
  
  Try “Find” for this whole thing:
  
  And change the number after that like this:
  2
  
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  - Miah on May 3, 2020 at 12:27 said:
    
    Oh, the xml formatting is stripped, keep pressing Next many many times or try Find for this:
    
    (type left angle here)Orientation type=”integer”
    
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Vadim on Apr 21, 2020 at 12:02 said:

Couldn’t say that I understand what you are asking

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