I used to have a Canson Papershow smartpen system, but they stopped supporting it so I had to ditch it. There are other Smart Pen systems, but none of them seems to be terribly successful. The Neo system pens are available, but I some stores say that the paper is discontinued, which makes the pen useless.

Do any of you use a Smart Pen that works with special paper and allows taking conventional nots that can then be sent to a computer?

Jeffery

I've never before heard of a Canson Papershow pen, although I've used various others, including the Livescribe and the Staedtler, that work in what sounds like a similar way (and others that use a clip on the paper or a digital clipboard in order to track pen movements).

My guess - and it's purely a guess - is that the growth in the number of tablets that are advanced enough to work with styluses, and the parallel development of tablet-based handwriting-recognition technology, have been sufficient to put a cap on the spread of paper-and-pen-to-digital devices.

I like and value writing by hand, and have tracked the development of these technologies since the millennium. In my experience none of them has worked as well as the latest tablet-based devices and applications. Of those, the apps from MyScript/Vision Objects appear to be leading the field.

The Equil system (https://www.myequil.com/home/ is a relatively recent (and stylish) entrant to the paper-and-pen-to-digital market, and still available. It worked for me as a means of getting my handwritten notes into my computer, although a scanner would have worked as well.

But its handwriting recognition still fell short. Perhaps that was because of my handwriting.

Thanks Hugh. It looks like a Wacom Slate (or something like that) system that I looked at a while back. The SmartPens seem to be tiny video cameras that can find a place on a grid of special paper with markings that are not noticeable. None of the SmartPen systems that I have seen in recent searches looks like something well-refined. Some users of the NEO system complain that it works briefly and then just creates marks that resemble a skipping ballpoint pen. Everything seems to have the same issues (at least one or the other). Either the paper is no longer sold, the software interface is no longer updated (Canson PaperShow had BOTH of those issues), or the pen craps out quickly and there is no decent customer support.

Just an update...I did find some examples of people using an Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro, with Notability being the software. That seems to solve all of my issues. Apple will still be around in 5 years, so hardware is not an issue, and I don't need much convincing to upgrade my 5-year-old iPad to something made in 2017.

Jeffery

Jeffery Smith wrote:

Thanks Hugh. It looks like a Wacom Slate (or something like that) system
that I looked at a while back. The SmartPens seem to be tiny video
cameras that can find a place on a grid of special paper with markings
that are not noticeable. None of the SmartPen systems that I have seen
in recent searches looks like something well-refined. Some users of the
NEO system complain that it works briefly and then just creates marks
that resemble a skipping ballpoint pen. Everything seems to have the
same issues (at least one or the other). Either the paper is no longer
sold, the software interface is no longer updated (Canson PaperShow had
BOTH of those issues), or the pen craps out quickly and there is no
decent customer support.

Just an update...I did find some examples of people using an Apple
Pencil on an iPad Pro, with Notability being the software. That seems to
solve all of my issues. Apple will still be around in 5 years, so
hardware is not an issue, and I don't need much convincing to upgrade my
5-year-old iPad to something made in 2017.

Jeffery

If you buy an iPad Pro, Notability is OK, and widely used. Goodnotes is another iOS application for writing notes. But handwriting-to-text or "handwriting recognition" is an as yet imperfect technology (as opposed to the pure recording of handwriting on a tablet, which a number of iOS note-taking and sketching applications will happily do). As I say above, in my opinion the developer MyScript is the leader in the race to improve the technology of handwriting recognition.

I've used MyScript apps for close-on 15 years, previously on the Mac and very recently on the iPad Pro. I've tried a few of the available iOS handwriting recognition applications released by other developers, and MyScript's iOS note-taking application Nebo is for me the best. MyScript has also developed several other related iOS applications: one resolves handwritten arithmetic calculations. and another can be used to write and convert handwriting to text in other iOS applications.

Just to mention - a markedly less expensive alternative to the iPad Pro is the new iPad, which was announced by Apple a few weeks ago. Like the iPad Pro it will also work with the Apple Pencil. Presumably it can therefore host and support handwriting applications like Notability, Goodnotes and Nebo. But I've not had the opportunity to test it, and so I don't know whether, when equipped with one of these applications, it is as good as the iPad Pro at recording handwriting and converting it to text.

The Wacom Folio (or Slate, if you prefer something slightly cheaper) offers handwriting recognition, and in my experience it's actually quite good (writing in standard English, at least). I've gradually got used to using the pad on its own, and then uploading my scribblings (or drawings) to my iPad whenever I feel like it. The Folio can store quite a few "pages" in its own memory before you have to upload them (I believe the capacity is ca. 100), so you can spend all day writing/scribbling/drawing in your Folio, then transfer them to iPad (and thence to your Wacom Cloud account) whenever is most convenient.

It's a hybrid solution, but it's really grown on me. Having said that, if I'd realised Apple was releasing a basic iPad with Pencil support, I wouldn't have splashed out on the Folio - I'd have saved up for the iPad instead. Although the Folio's battery life is (unsurprisingly, because it's not a sophisticated personal computer) vastly greater (several weeks, if you're not using it all day).

Cheers,
Bill

Maybe I should add that I've absolutely no connection with MyScript - other than occasionally buying licences to their products!

I am hoping that there is an app that accepts a shorthand sort of thing like the PalmPilot of 20 years ago. I learned the PalmPilot sort of shorthand in a very brief time, and could write very fast with few errors using that system.

Among the apps that I'm going to try on the iPad Pro are GoodNotes, Notability, and Penultimate. Some of the folks who have posted YouTube videos on how they take notes on the iPad have *very good" printing skills, while my natural writing style that evolved during my college years is a combination of cursive and printing.

Hugh wrote:

If you buy an iPad Pro, Notability is OK, and widely used. Goodnotes is
another iOS application for writing notes. But handwriting-to-text or
"handwriting recognition" is an as yet imperfect technology (as opposed
to the pure recording of handwriting on a tablet, which a number of iOS
note-taking and sketching applications will happily do). As I say above,
in my opinion the developer MyScript is the leader in the race to
improve the technology of handwriting recognition.

I've used MyScript apps for close-on 15 years, previously on the Mac and
very recently on the iPad Pro. I've tried a few of the available iOS
handwriting recognition applications released by other developers, and
MyScript's iOS note-taking application Nebo is for me the best. MyScript
has also developed several other related iOS applications: one resolves
handwritten arithmetic calculations. and another can be used to write
and convert handwriting to text in other iOS applications.

Just to mention - a markedly less expensive alternative to the iPad Pro
is the new iPad, which was announced by Apple a few weeks ago. Like the
iPad Pro it will also work with the Apple Pencil. Presumably it can
therefore host and support handwriting applications like Notability,
Goodnotes and Nebo. But I've not had the opportunity to test it, and so
I don't know whether, when equipped with one of these applications, it
is as good as the iPad Pro at recording handwriting and converting it to
text.

Good stuff there. I agree that Myscript's handwriting transation seems to be the best right now on iOS. FYI a couple of days ago iMore posted a good article on the best notetaking apps for iOS, which discussed some of the iOS apps mentioned:

https://www.imore.com/best-notetaking-handwriting-apps-apple-pencil-ipad

and there was a neat Reddit thread last summer:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ipad/comments/6mgol8/comparing_notability_goodnotes_onenote_nebo/

a quick shout out for metamoji corp:
the mazec hadwriting input app is really very good. not the same as handwriting in app, but well and truly up there with myscript.
I've used it extensively with zoomnotes on ipad. A real contender to goodnotes for function!

I'll give that a look. I'm still conflicted between Notes Plus and MyScript. I'd welcome a new contender in the short list.

JLS

bigspud wrote:

a quick shout out for metamoji corp:
the mazec hadwriting input app is really very good. not the same as
handwriting in app, but well and truly up there with myscript.
I've used it extensively with zoomnotes on ipad. A real contender to
goodnotes for function!