Handwriting

[ntractv]

Maybe it's just me, but, has anyone else noticed that the more you write with the stylus on your PPC device that your actual handwriting is starting to look undecipherable when using paper? I used to get compliments on my handwriting style now it's starting to look like crap since most of the writing I do know is on my iPAQ.

Just a thought :|

[WillyG]

Lol yea :lol:

I still write the characters T, F, V (oposite) and number 4 the same way as i did when i used Palm, on paper. Those letters are hard to break oneself of once you have learned them. To my frustration i even write them on my PPC now and then. Whats worse is that i have started to write wite with capitalisation on paper. On my PPC i prefer caracter recognicer, on paper; grafitti :roll:

[Skoobouy]

Learning to use Transciber has actually _helped_ my handwriting; after some weeks of practice, my errors have decreased, and my natural hand-writing has improved substanitally because I've been forced to correct some habits. Transcriber works much better if you do certain things, like:

- for 'i' and 'j', write the dot after the line.
- for 'x', start from the upper-left instead of the upper-right.
- be VERY careful that your 'v' looks absolutely nothing like an 'r'.

Once I got those things down, Transcriber became my fastest mode of input.

Of course, you have to do some things that are wierd, like:

- write 0's clockwise and O's counter-clockwise.
- make exaggerated commas (or else they'll turn into periods).
- start from the bottom when writing '4'.

Character Recognizer had me wanting to do wierd things, though, like writing in all lowercase letters, and doing that wierd loopy thing for k's and x's.

[thomas1973]

I really miss TealScript from my Palm days :( ... TealScript was a character recognition program that could be trained to understand my handwriting! You'd input each character three times, and TealScript would make an 'avarage' from this. You could also keep training it. It could even be configured to understand the Scandinavian æ, ø å! And you could implement small macros!

Why hasn't this been done on PCC?!? :twisted:


Thomas.

[WillyG]

Learning to use Transciber has actually _helped_ my handwriting.......Transcriber works much better if you do certain things..........Once I got those things down, Transcriber became my fastest mode of input.

Im sure it does, and i wish i could use it too :(
Thing is it doesnt understand the nordic letters.

Norway and Denmark:
Æ/æ, Ø/ø, Å/å

Sweden:
Ä/ä, Ö/ö, Å/å

If there only was a way to "hack" this into its vocabulary of letters, or microsoft could come with a patch/update.

You dont happend to know how to get to those letters do you? (Norwegian ones most interesting for me)

[bdegroodt]

Funny. I posted the same concern a few months ago and the response was pretty much "No. My writing looks better now!" I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that's suffering from this. That said, I still can't get Transcriber to understand my writing often enough to make it an input method that doesn't make me want to see how many times I can skip my iPAQ across the river!

[Dave Beauvais]

... Of course, you have to do some things that are wierd, like:

- write 0's clockwise and O's counter-clockwise.
- make exaggerated commas (or else they'll turn into periods).
- start from the bottom when writing '4'. ...
Actually, you can "train" Transcriber to recognize characters the other way around. In the Transcriber toolbar, tap the button that looks like a handwritten "a" which will take you to the training dialog. Tapping on each character sample will show you an animation of how it's drawn. Then, simply tell Transcriber which is your preferred method. You can even save you preferences so they can be imported later. I haven't had to retrain Transcriber over the course of three Pocket PCs since I just import the saved file!

I've told Transcriber that I only write a zero with a line through it. Doing that greatly improved recognition of zeroes and Os. Same thing with a Z vs. a 2 -- my Zs have a cross bar. Once I setup Transcriber to work the way I am most comfortable with, I have very few recognition errors.

--Dave

[Skoobouy]

Yes, I have 'trained' mine too. Training is really necessary for Transcriber to have any real practical use. I prefer to write my 0's clockwise because it's one less stroke. Either way is kind of wierd for me though.

The rector of our college has a Toshiba e310 that he likes, except that his handwriting is so terrible that he can't handle any on-screen input. He also hates tap-keyboards. It's too bad there's no hardware thumb-keyboard add on for that thing.

But, back to handwriting, part of the reason I can use T.S. at all is because of my rigorous handwriting education at a Catholic grade school. :) I think of Transcriber as the software version of an old nun with a paddy-bat. You had BETTER dot those i's! Or else... :bangin:

heh. P.S. - I'm kidding, I was treated very nicely as a little boy. But darn, did they ever care about crossing those t's.

[Jeff Rutledge]

I really miss TealScript from my Palm days :( ... TealScript was a character recognition program that could be trained to understand my handwriting! You'd input each character three times, and TealScript would make an 'avarage' from this. You could also keep training it. It could even be configured to understand the Scandinavian æ, ø å! And you could implement small macros!

Why hasn't this been done on PCC?!? :twisted:


Thomas.

I agree completely Thomas! This may be the only app I miss from my Palm days (I wasn't tough to convert). This was a great program. I really liked how it tracked the five most-common mistakes so that you could focus your training. I'm not surprised Transcriber doesn't do it, but I am surprised that Calligrapher doesn't have the ability to learn.

[Hyperluminal]

Calligrapher (unlike TS) actually does learn, but it does it in the background. Apparently, it'll just see what you correct and how you correct it, and use that to improve its HWR...

[Jacob]

Calligrapher (unlike TS) actually does learn, but it does it in the background. Apparently, it'll just see what you correct and how you correct it, and use that to improve its HWR...

Does it? Hmm.. odd that they don't seem to document that. I also haven't seen any improvement on it's recognition of my writing.

Just curious as to that feature - I'd think it'd be something they would put more obviously on their feature list.

[Hyperluminal]

Yeah, it is funny that they don't mention it, but I've heard about it many times. Also, when I first got Calligrapher (the trial, actually), it really couldn't recognize my handwriting. I honestly wondered why everyone said it was so great. After the month-long trial was up, it was amazing, rarely missing words. When I got a Pocket PC, I noticed Transcriber (version 1) didn't do that. It couldn't really recognize my HW and didn't improve (that's when I bought Calligrapher :) ). So it would seem like Calligrapher can learn HW...

[Stephen Beesley]

Although I would love to turn this into another thread about just how wonderful the long lost Newton was (must resist....) what I will say is that since I have been using HWR (over five years of heavy use on various PDAs) my handwriting has definately improved.

Actually it is not really my handwriting that has improved it is my printing I pretty much always print (even before my PDA obsession) as my writing really is unreadable!

As for Calligrapher v Transcriber I have found that Calligrapher does seem to give me better HWR, but I am not sure if that is because it is "learning".

Goldtee

[Jeff Rutledge]

That was my impression as well - that Calligrapher had a much better recognition engine. But I did not get the impression that it had learning capabilities.

Hyperluminal: Do you know where one could get more info on this feature?

[Hyperluminal]

JR- on PhatWare's Calligrapher site (http://www.paragraph.com/calligrapher/index.html), in the features section, it says this:

Ready to Go without Training
Neural network technology and artificial intelligence algorithms allow you to immediately use the recognition system without any pre-training.

If you want more info, it'd probably be a good idea to email them... :)

[Jeff Rutledge]

Ready to Go without Training
Neural network technology and artificial intelligence algorithms allow you to immediately use the recognition system without any pre-training.


See to me, that means that it has a large database of different ways people write different characters. It uses it's intelligence to determine what you're trying to write based on this existing knowledge. What TealScript did was learn how I wrote the letter "E" (for example) and then add that knowledge into it's translation methods. In theory, I could teach TealScript to interpret a figure-eight as the letter "Z" if I wanted to. I think that's different than what Calligrapher can do.

Either way, they're both great products. Maybe Paragraph has something up their sleeves for the next version...

[Hyperluminal]

Well, they admitted that CG6 was pretty much the same as 5 (except that it's PPC compatible), but they said that 7 will be a large upgrade. So, we'll see...

[Jeff Rutledge]

Well, they admitted that CG6 was pretty much the same as 5 (except that it's PPC compatible), but they said that 7 will be a large upgrade. So, we'll see...

That would be very cool. :rock on dude!:

[Unreal32]

My *printing* has improved. My handwriting has gotten significantly worse, now that I can write in Block Recognizer or MyScript without looking at the screen. However, I do have a tendency now in my writing to make a "7" when I really want a "T", and I'm always astonished in print when I pencil an "f" and it comes out looking like an "f" the first time (unlike on my PPC!) :) I also find myself making more of a squiggle for my "K"s now.. and I've started actually making a handwritten ampersand look like a "&" than before, when I wrote one and it looked like a cursive capital E with a line through it.