Introduction

The newest pen enabled offering from Pen & Internet, ritePen is designed to enhance handwriting recognition on the Tablet PC. The overall idea of ritePen is similar to the write anywhere feature that is built into Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, but with extra features and better recognition.

The application

When you start ritePen, it puts an icon in your system tray that allows you to control the program. The program is really easy to use, as you simply write anywhere on the screen and ritePen will convert that to text in the currently active program. (See figures 1 & 2)

Figure 1 -

Figure 2 -

When you don't want the pen movement to be interpreted as writing, you simply tap the icon and it turns the writing off. I found I had to do this whenever I wanted to select any text, but it was surprisingly good at recognizing that I didn't want to write at other times. For instance you can resize windows, and pull down menus with no problem while ritePen is turned on.

Even though it is simple to use, ritePen is still a pretty powerful application with lots of options. You can change everything from the color of the ink, to the delay between when you stop writing and the time it recognizes the text. A few of the options are displayed below in figure 3.

Figure 3 -

Also, just like Windows XP Tablet PC edition, ritePen contains a set of gestures you can use to help you when writing. The basic gestures allow you to do things such as insert a line break, insert a space, enter a backspace, and undo your last action. Also a couple of other gestures help you with symbols and if the recognizer doesn't convert your writing just right. I purposely messed up on a sentence to show you an example of this, see figure 4.

Figure 4-

The recognition

So it has lots of features, but I can hear you asking the question - How much better is the recognition? Well I spent a good amount of time writing the same text into both ritePen and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition's built in handwriting features. I will say there was a noticeable difference in how well ritePen recognized my cursive handwriting, while they were close to the same when it came to my print handwriting (which I use most of the time). Obviously this is just an estimation, as I can't write exactly the same each time. Overall though, I would say ritePen does have a good improvement in recognition quality.

Conclusion

Overall Pen & Internet has done a great job here with ritePen. It improves handwriting recognition, plus has some nice abilities that you don't get with just the Windows XP handwriting recognition. The ability to write anywhere on the screen with no lines to limit you is a big advantage, and the fact that it recognizes when you are trying to resize windows, etc.. makes that even better. My only complaint is that you have to turn the recognition off to really edit text easily, but with the system tray icon this is really easy to do and not a big issue. Nice job by the folks and Pen & Internet, ritePen is well worth the price.

Pros: Improved recognition, full screen "writeablity"
Cons: None

Buzz Meter: 4.5 out of 5

ritePen can be purchased from Pen & Internet for $19.99.
http://www.penandinternet.com/piweb/products/ritePen/ritepen_prodinfo.asp