Handwriting recognition can certainly be useful, even for those of us with keyboards. As an avid user of the HP Jornada 720 Handheld PC 2000, I have always tried to minimize my use of the stylus. But after working with Paragon Software's PenReader (www.penreader.com), I find myself using handwriting recognition more often.
I've been testing PenReader 2.04 for a couple of weeks now. The current version does not recognize connected text input (cursive writing). However, according to Paragon's Web site, a cursive version is being beta tested. PenReader currently supports 28 different languages, including a plethora of accents, punctuation marks, and brackets. Since I write only in English, I will elaborate on PenReader's English accuracy.
Single-character recognition
As mentioned, each character must be written separately. Your stylus tip touches the screen, you make the character, and then you lift the stylus off the screen. PenReader "looks" at the mark you've made and translates it into an alphanumeric character. You can lift the stylus off the screen to dot an "i" or cross a "t," but be quick about it or PenReader will think you're finished with the character.
If you're a sloppy writer, you may have to adjust your style a little. But you don't have to learn a completely new way of writing characters. PenReader is pretty good at recognizing the most common ways of writing and printing a character. However, PenReader translates all letters into lowercase characters by default. You have to insert a special "up" stroke before any letter you want capitalized, or use a special caps-lock stroke. There are strokes for inserting tabs, line feeds, and other formatting, as well.
At first, using PenReader was challenging. I'm used to writing in cursive, with the characters in a word joined together. I had to get used to writing single letters again. I also had to adapt to writing on the Jornada's screen. It's not as easy as writing on paper. (This may be due partly to my homemade screen protector.) After some experimentation in "language context" (text) mode I found that PenReader recognizes larger letters better. Writing one character on top of another is acceptable, as long as you remember to take the stylus off the screen in between letters and insert a dash between words. When you pause, PenReader displays the translated text and erases the jumble of handwrittencharacters.
Screen 1 illustrates my attempt to write a few words in large (approx. 16 pt) characters. The upward stroke before the word "This" tells PenReader to capitalize the first letter of the word. The dash between each word inserts a space and tells PenReader that the previous characters are a single word. By default, PenReader waits until you're finished with a sentence or short phrase (detected by a pause in your writing), displays your translated text, and then deletes the handwritten characters. PenReader recognized and translated this short sentence without any problems.
Screen 1: This screen illustrates my attempt to write a few words in large (16pt) characters. PenReader recognized this without any problem
(see top of Screen 2).
PenReader also has a "Digits" mode, which recognizes numbers (Screen 2) and a "Calculator" mode that lets you do basic math calculations by writing them on the display (Screens 3 and 4).
Screen 2: PenReader's "Digits" mode recognizes numbers (see top of Screen 3).
Screens 3 and 4: PenReader's "Calculator" mode lets you do basic math calculations by writing them on the display (Screens 3). PenReader calculates the result and displays the original equation and the result (Screen 4).
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