I don’t have any problem moving my stylus side to side.
When I’m working at my desk sometimes I end up shoving both keyboard and tablet to the left a bit, so the tablet is more in front of me. It’s not right in the middle like a piece of paper would be if I was hunching over a drawing board, though, it’s still distinctly to one side.
When I’m out and about with the laptop I tend to align myself more with the screen, so the tablet is distinctly off to the side. Never been a problem.
Out of interest, and assuming you use a tablet with extra buttons, how do you use them? Or do you disable them like virtually every other tablet user I've ever met :)
And yeah pressing too hard on the pen will fuck you right up :)
(so will holding it too tight, if an invisible person couldn't easily pluck your pen out of your fingers, you're holding it too hard)
In my case, I use the keyboard much more than the mouse.
If I try to go back and forth a lot then I'm gonna either be constantly putting the stylus in and out of the holder, or typing with it between the fingers of my right hand, neither of which is much fun.
But, I'm curious: how do you place your mouse on the desk?
To me, there's one big difference between the paper and the mouse: The former sits in front of you, while the latter sits to the side.
I find it uncomfortable to move the mouse too much to the side, even though I use a fairly compact keyboard (MS Sculpt).
I've spent some time a few months ago trying to optimise my mouse situation. In the end, I went with a "gaming" mouse [0] for the high resolution and (relatively) low weight so that I can move it around with just my fingers. However, I'm not a very heavy mouse user, so maybe this helps rest the fingers.
I've also tried a vertical mouse, but the issue with moving the arm too much to the side was present, too.
What also worked well for me is a thumb operated trackball (I use a Logitech MX Ergo).
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[0] For the curious it's a Logitech G703. It was the best compromise I've found looking for a wide and lightweight mouse. Wireless is a nice bonus, it was barely more expensive than the G403 which is otherwise identical.