Handwriting Recognition

[endamame]

What is the best software out there that works with English Version of Windows ?

Any Opinion of "PenPower" ?

Thanks

[snarfer]

The Chinese handwriting recognition that comes with the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 Recognizer Pack seems to work fine. And it's free. Don't know if there's an equivalent for other editions of the OS.

[shushi]

The Chinese IME that comes with WinXP has an "input pad" that recognizes one character at a time (you draw it with the mouse). Don't know if that's what you're looking for.

Check out http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/handson/user/IME_Paper.mspx

[self-taught-mba]

I agree w/ you snarfer. Also have a Tablet and it works well.

Wanted to add one thing: VERY IMPORTANT

If you reinstall etc...

If you download the XP SP2 and install first you can't install the HRP (??) (handwritten recognizer pack) at least as of awhile ago.

However if you already have the HRP, SP2 will "UPDATE" it for you. Because for Tablets SP2 comes with XP 2005 (beyond a normal SP, it basically comes with the next version of the tablet op sys.)

HOWEVER!!!, the "updated" recognizer pack, imho really sucks. It IS more accurate, HOWEVER version 1 allowed you to input just a peice, radical or semblance of a character and it would give you a wide variety of choices , whereas version 2 gives fewer choices and you pretty much have to be able to produce the whole character .

This is very important for someone like me for 2 reasons (self-taught, don't really believe in writing characters by hand since I type, and focus on spoken more):

1. I often can't write the complete character, so the old way allowed me to write a part of it and then build from there

2. the first "unupdated" version served as a valuable training tool b/c I could write a part of it and realize what else I was missing given the choices

Now it is either it works well if you write well or not well for us learners at all.