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Taking handwritten notes on digital devices
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Posted by MadaboutDana
May 28, 2020 at 08:57 AM
(Software: iPadOS/macOS)
I recently acquired a second-hand iPad Pro, primarily so I could draw on it. But in actual fact, I’ve unexpectedly discovered the joys of handwriting on the thing! I use Notability on both iPad, iPhone and Mac, and the handwriting recognition is really very good indeed. Meaning I can take full advantage of digital text even though I’m handwriting.
Given that I’m also a touch-typist, I didn’t think that handwriting recognition had very much to offer. But the freedom of a pen (or rather, Apple Pencil) in one’s hand is extraordinarily liberating. Here you write some text; there you do a little diagram or drawing. I’d forgotten how much I used to doodle in my school notebooks. Also, just how much fun the sheer mutability of handwriting is - how easy it is to emphasise something, or draw little arrows to something else. After decades of touch-typing, the absence of linearity is positively heady!
#notability
Posted by huvir
May 29, 2020 at 01:42 PM
Nebo seemed quite promising first. What I miss a lot is basic reorganizing of the text. You cannot move existing block of text up / down unless there is an empty space created beforehand (to fit into). Compared to Stylus Labs Write it rendres useless. I had another problem with capital B letter in Nebo that was not recognized correctly. They promised to fix it but later thay stated this is not correctible by AI… So I gave up. MS OneNote is missing the text editing features completely. Stylus Labs Write it great compared to the giants with AI.
As a matter of fact, handwriting takes much more time than typing on keyboard and I miss all the extra “organizing” features of note taking apps like Roam Reseach etc. So I use my MS Surface for occasional hand-drawing. There are extra problems on Windows OS with the stylus input that is very undevelopped compared to mouse input.
Petr
Posted by Dave M
Jun 1, 2020 at 03:29 PM
My experiences completely match Dr Andlus’ (that writing works my brain differently than merely typing, and differently again from voice recognition, where I second guess what any audience unseen or seen is making of my words and what a clown I am to be dictating them out loud)
On iOS, I’ve found a couple of other interesting apps, which work as keyboard (and can be undocked to provide a floating, movable ‘handwriting keyboard’ panel to write in).
One is Mazec, which I’ve found very good, and has been around a few years. ‘Handwriting’ is another, which I’ve not dabbled with so much.
Notability allows you to select hand-written text on the page, and convert to text. I’ve found this quite effective, even detecting and handling non-latin writing systems.
The difference between the two approaches is that Notability lets you write anywhere on the page, whereas the ‘keyboards’ limit you to a set window.
There are two wild alternatives:
One is ‘pen to print’, which claims it can take a photograph of handwritten text, and convert it to typed text. I dabbled with this a little then realised my paper-based scrawl was a little challenging, as I’d end up writing at multiple angles around a page, not really helping it much.
The other is to go grab an Apple Newton Messagepad 2100. Still the best implementation of handwriting on screen I’ve ever used, and there is still a 3rd party tool around which allows you to connect to your Newton to pull text and notes from it - though in this day and age, there are certain hoops to crash through to get it up on your network and visible, and you’ll forever have set of 4 AA batteries on charge (doubly so if you have a rabbit - they love the mains cables)
Posted by Pierre Paul Landry
Jun 1, 2020 at 04:02 PM
huvir wrote:
> Stylus Labs Write is great compared to the giants with AI.
Indeed, Write is a gem.
iPad version was recently updated and Windows / Android update is coming too (I exchange with the dev from time to time)
FYI, Write is integrated with IQ (and IQO) Doc pane, so if you combine this with a sync service (such as Dropbox) your handwritten notes can be viewed and edited on both mobile and desktop
Details here:
https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/3457
Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer