Inkwell

Or is it just "Ink"? We've seen both monikers and both are used on Apple's Inkwell page. The preference panel is named "Ink" so that is what we will call Apple's new handwriting recognition application.

A supported tablet plugged into a USB port is needed for Ink to first appear as a preference panel in Jaguar's System Preferences application. All USB Wacom tablets are supported. We're not professional graphics artists but we bought a Wacom Graphire2 tablet in steel color on line from Page Computers for $77 to test Ink. We've become fascinated with the tablet as a general input device but that is another story.

Ink's preferences allow handwriting to be turned on or off. A pop up menu allows one to enable writing Anywhere or just to Ink's special writing pad, InkPad. "Anywhere" means any application that accepts text input. Writing to Ink is not too difficult but it takes some practice. Both the writer and Ink seem to learn with experience. We had more success writing to TextEdit or to other applications that accept text than Ink's Inkpad. When writing to an application other than InkPad a lined yellow pad section appears on the screen showing your handwriting. It disappears transferring the text to the application when you pause. Reasonably careful printing results in perfect word recognition. Rapid cursive writing generally gets poor results although recognition does improve markedly with use if one is fairly consistent. There is a list of pen gestures that can be used to edit text without using the keyboard and they work very well.

There are a variety of settings in the preference pane that can be used to improve Ink's performance. But this is one application that takes practice to use with facility.