TEXT INPUT ON THE POCKET PC (iPAQ)

CHARACTER RECOGNIZER

The Pocket PC Character Recognizer system is far more natural than the Palm's Graffitti, but it still pays to use some stylised/economical shortcuts such as the upward 'i', the 'right-and-down 't' and the left-and-down 'f'.

TRANSCRIBER

The iPAQ also offers Transcriber. Instead of entering characters one at a time, this system accepts natural 'joined-up' handwriting (entered anywhere on the screen) and converts it to text. Unlike previous experiments of this kind, this particular implementation works well enough to be viable. The screen is, however, rather small for this type of input and I still prefer to use Character Recogniser. The software comes with the iPAQ but is not pre-installed.

RIK - 18 June 2001