GBM How-To Series #23 : Tips for improving your handwriting recognition

For many, handwriting recognition is a thing of joy. If you are like me, one of the most ongoing and frustrating things in my life is my handwriting. It is horrible. Mix in some electrons and no wonder I get such mixed results with handwriting recognition. Wanting to do a better job, here are a few tips that I found that may help make an improvement.

GBM How-To Series #23 : Tips for improving your handwriting recognition

Calibrate your tablet PC pen & screen. You need to have the pen and screen on the same page so to speak. The old adage of “garbage in , garbage out” comes to mind. Make sure the calibration is spot on by doing a calibration every now and again. Now that I mention it, how often do you find the need to calibrate? 

Hold the pen or stylus in the same way that you hold a pen or pencil when writing on paper. Make it natural. If it feels funky, maybe you should practice by taking notes in class or church, making grocery lists, something , anything. I found that after a 2 week Microsoft class that I took (using OneNote 2007 w/audio) my handwriting recognition became much better after a week than when we started. I guess practice makes perfect (or perhaps at least better)

Hold the pen or stylus near the tip and rest your hand on the screen. I found that I get lazy when holding the pen. Also, I began to notice that I was not holding it the same way the majority of the time. Once I focused on my technique, I did see some improvements.

Write using cursive letters in a straight line. Write legibly, at a constant speed with even spacing between letters and words. I took a lot of computer science classes in college back in the 80’s. Remember COBOL coding sheets? Yea, that dates me, but that’s where I learned to literally write code. I used all caps and made sure that each character was inside the designated block. Bad habits are hard to break. Concentrate on making your cursive letters flow smoothly. My handwriting still looks gross.

Avoid printing all uppercase letters; Avoid empty spaces; Avoid adding additional words, diagrams, or drawings within existing handwriting in a note. Write uppercase letters larger than lowercase letters.