Handwriting recognition

Meetings, meetings, meetings. They’re an unavoidable part of work in the modern office, and all too often you need to take notes. For many people that means a pen and paper because their typing’s not fast enough.

The obvious solution would be a tablet PC, but they’re about £150 more expensive than a comparable notebook, which rules them out for many people. However, with Vista, you don’t have to splash out on an expensive tablet PC.

All versions of the new operating system except Home Basic already include tablet PC functions. Just add an affordable graphics tablet ­ they start from about £20 ­ and you can convert any computer into a tablet PC. So next time you’re in a meeting, simply put your laptop to one side and write on a graphics tablet in front of you.

Practice makes perfect
Using a tablet and its stylus takes a lot of getting used to, but if you practice, you can do without a mouse and keyboard altogether. We tested Vista’s tablet functions with a Wacom Graphire 4 tablet. After plugging it in and installing the driver, all the necessary Vista features will be enabled automatically. You can then use the stylus instead of a mouse, but there are a few things to watch out for.

Many people using a graphics tablet for the first time try to move the pointer on screen by dragging the tip of the stylus across the pad. In fact, the trick is to hold the nib about a centimetre above the pad to move the mouse and then tap on the tablet to click. We also found that using a small sheet of paper to cover the pad can help when writing because it provides a more normal texture on which to write on.

In the Control Panel, select Pen and Input Devices to customise how your stylus behaves. This is where you can specify how to use the buttons on the stylus ­ referred to as the Pen in Windows ­ or which icons appear when clicking or double-clicking. On the Flicks tab you can configure the actions to be carried out when you make a particular gesture. For example you can use short, rapid movements to the left or right to go forwards or backwards a page at a time in Internet Explorer.

You can practice using the tablet and stylus with Vista’s built-in Ink Ball game, where you draw lines to steer the balls of ink into the right holes.

Handwriting recognition with Vista
The key to using a pen instead of a mouse and keyboard is handwriting recognition. To get started, you need to open the input area, which is usually hidden as a tab at the left of the screen, or alternatively a small symbol that appears if you put the cursor into a text field or a Word document.

Clicking on the symbol opens the input area, and you can use the Tools menu to dock it at the top or bottom of the Desktop so that it doesn’t obstruct your view of other things on screen. You should also check the settings under Tools/Options before you get going ­ it’s here that you can specify whether you are right- or left-handed, which width of nib you want to write with and how you wish to delete text you have already written.

You can choose for the input area to be in the format of a writing pad, character pad or onscreen keyboard. You select one of these modes using three symbols in the upper-left corner. The most interesting is the writing pad. Place the pen on the pad and write away. After each word, Vista will attempt to recognise it and display what it has recognised in a button. If the system makes an incorrect suggestion you can click on the button and change it.