When the time comes to enter text on the screen, most of us think of typing on a keyboard. But there are many ways to go about getting words to appear in front of us. There’s voice recognition, for example. There’s also the ability to write out words by hand.
Yes, the ability to enter text by handwriting has existed for decades. Why isn’t it more popular? For a while, it simply wasn’t good enough. But for many people, that has changed, and most of us have no idea.
How Computers Recognize Handwriting
Converting handwritten text into digital input isn’t as easy as it seems. After all, the “A” key on a keyboard produces the letter “A” no matter who’s pressing it or how hard they hit the key. On the flip side, everyone writes the letter “A” slightly different from everyone else.
To understand how computers understand handwritten text, let’s run through the handwriting recognition technologies at play.
Some of these technologies are newer than others, but most have been around for dozens of years. So why does handwriting recognition still feel like magic? What has prevented it from catching on?
1. People Aren’t Aware of Electronic Handwriting
Most people don’t use handwriting as an input option for the same reason they don’t use Linux as their desktop operating system; they aren’t aware it’s a thing. Laptops come with keyboards. Tablets come with virtual keyboards. It’s only relatively recently that either have started to come with specialized writing styluses like the Surface Pen (pictured above) and the Apple Pencil.
Even then, most people think of using those tools to take handwritten notes as they would on a physical notebook, not using those pens to transcribe digital text. Yet it turns out you can use a pen to enter website URLs, not just sign your signature on PDFs. For example, theApple Pencil’s Scribble feature can convert handwriting into textin any text field, and it’s a compelling reason on its own to purchase the stylus.
2. Inaccurate Character Recognition
Initial efforts like OCR recognize characters at a time. This can result in unexpected errors like the word “cheese” being picked up as “chease” because the second “e” was harder to make out, even though chease is not an English word.
Many of us have enough difficulty spelling correctly without dealing with a computer misunderstanding the character we’re trying to write. Spell check exists for a reason. If you already write slower than you type, having to go back and fix computer-caused typos doesn’t help matters.
3. Wait for It…
When you drag your styles across a screen, your handwriting appears instantaneously, but that doesn’t mean the computer knows what you’ve written. You need to pause and wait for the machine to process the information.
In other words, you write a word or sentence, lift your stylus, wait for the digital version of what you’ve written to appear, and then move on to writing the next word or sentence. Depending on how fast you type on a keyboard, having to pause can make handwriting feel like a real drag.
This delay still exists on newer devices, but it was even longer in the past when CPUs were less powerful and took longer to process information.
4. The Need for Extra, Sometimes Expensive Hardware
For years, most computers have come with keyboards, not pens or touchscreens. If you wanted to write words on-screen, you had to buy additional hardware or pony up more money for a specialized devicelike a high-quality drawing tablet.
While touchscreens have become truly ubiquitous, styluses still remain somewhat of a niche accessory. And ones that can truly replicate your handwriting with accuracy cost more than their nubby, foam, device-agnostic alternatives better suited for tapping icons and navigating on-screen interfaces.
5. Typing on a Keyboard Is Good Enough
As more of us have grown up with (or grown accustomed to) computers, fewer people find keyboards difficult to use. For the most part, people aren’t seeking out alternatives. And when they do, the general preference tends to be for voice dictation. The desire to interact with a PC like you would a notebook isn’t widespread.
That means there are fewer researchers, companies, and other organizations devoted to making handwriting recognition the best that it can be. And that investment is necessary considering that teaching a computer to understand handwriting requires more magic than teaching one how to decipher keystrokes.
Handwriting Recognition Is Surprisingly Good (But You Have to be Patient)
All of that aside, if you’re someone who really wants to write instead of type, now is a good time to consider picking up a stylus and seeing how far handwriting recognition has come. But before you render judgment, know that the hardware you pick and the software you use both make a difference. Writing on a BOOX Tab Ultra is a much nicer experience than on a Moto G Stylus. In other words, don’t write off the experience just because you’re writing with the wrong tools.
