Page 87 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Here’s a weird, wild feature that not many people know about, probably

because there’s no visible sign that it even exists. But you can neatly split
your screen between two windows, full height, edge to edge of the monitor,
as shown in Figure 2-3. Or, in Windows 10, even four windows. (Eight-
window Snap will have to wait until Windows 11.)

And why would you bother? Well, a full-height, half-width window is ideal
for reading an article, for example. You wouldn’t want your eyes to have to
keep scanning the text all the way across the football field of your screen,

and you wouldn’t want to spend a lot of fussy energy trying to make the
window tall enough to read without scrolling a lot. This gesture sets things

up for you with one quick drag.

But this half-screen trick is even more useful when you apply it to two
windows. Now it’s simple to compare any two windows’ contents, or to

move or copy stuff between them.

Split the screen into two windows

Here’s how Snap works. You can follow along in Figure 2-3:

1. Mash the first window to the right or left edge of the screen.

Mouse, trackpad, finger: Using the window’s title bar as a handle,
drag the window to the right or left edge of the screen. When

you’ve gone far enough, Windows shows you an outline of the
proposed new window shape. Let go.

Keyboard: It’s actually much faster to use the keyboard shortcuts:
+ to snap the window against the left side or + to snap it

against the right.