Larilyn's Tip of the Week: Left-Handed User

Did you know that 10% of the world's population is left-handed?

This seems like a small amount, percentage-wise, but it's a significant amount of people.  So while most of you probably are NOT left-handed, there may be a few of you who are!

What does this have to do with computers?  Well....a few days ago, my sister-in-law sent a text in our family group chat asking for recommendations for a left-handed mouse because my youngest nephew has decided to be that 10% in our family.

I couldn't believe what I was reading - in my head, everyone knows you don't have to buy a new mouse for someone left-handed....you just switch the buttons on the mouse!  Unless you have a super duper, fancy, ergonomic mouse that is completely different than most mice that are perfectly balanced, as the world should be.

But if you have a mouse like the one shown, it's very easy to switch the buttons to be used by a left-handed person.

All you do is open up your Control Panel - hit the Windows logo at the bottom left of your screen (or the left of the center if you have updated to Windows 11) and just type Control - this will then bring up the Control Panel as an option.

Choose Hardware and Sound.

Then in the top section (Devices and Printers), you will click on Mouse.  This will pop up the Mouse Properties box.

At the top, you can see the option to switch the primary and secondary buttons.  If you check that box and click Okay at the bottom, you now have a left-handed mouse!  The main pointer is now on the right, and the "right-click" is now on the left.

So hopefully, this helps 10% of you!