PCWorld: Turn Your PC Into A Pen-Based Computer With RitePen
Connect a graphics tablet to your PC and ritePen lets you input handwritten text in programs such as word processors, which it then translates into electronic text.
“Computers are amazing tools for writing. Well, scratch that: They’re amazing tools for typing words into documents. When it comes to actually wrapping your fingers around a pen, most people find paper a more convenient platform than your typical Windows application. Thanks to tools like Ritescript’s ritePen ($40, 3-day free trial), however, you can use your tablet PC–or any PC that has a graphics tablet–to write notes, mark up documents, sign contracts, fill in forms on “locked” PDF files, and do a hundred other things that, for all their advantages, PCs just don’t handle very well.
RitePen can use any manual input device, including a graphics tablet, your finger on a touchscreen, or even the mouse.
As its primary function, ritePen runs in the background, waiting for input. If you use a tablet PC or a graphics tablet, simply putting your finger on the screen (or the tablet’s stylus down on the stylus surface) engages ritePen. If you’re running a word processing app, write the words anywhere on the touchscreen, and ritePen will make an effort to turn your handwriting into electronic text in the document. Of course it’s not perfect, so the program also lets you review the words it has converted, and make modifications if ritePen wasn’t able to fully make out your chicken-scratch handwriting. If it doesn’t correctly guess a letter, simply scratch out the mistaken letter and ritePen will offer a list of words from which you can choose the correct word, all of which match on the letters the program correctly guessed.”
