Taking digital handwritten notes for Word conversion?

[Gavin James]

Hi,

A bit of a long shot.

When I attend a whole day seminar or training course I end up scribbling several pages of A4 notes. I then go home and spend hours typing them up!

I can't type directly into Word in these sessions.

In a perfect world I'd like to be able to handwrite using a stylus/tablet (?) or similar and then have this convert my handwriting into text. I realise it wouldn't be totally accurate, but it would give me a head-start for subsequent adjustments.

I've seen a few solutions but they appear to cater for a few rather than many notes and they do not appear to convert to text afterwards.

Anybody do similar?

Thanks a lot.

(I don't use Apple)

 

[Mr D]

Any reason why you cannot type directly into word in these sessions?
Would typing direct on a tablet or large phone help?
Or take a laptop and type up as you go along.

 

[Page]

I am not in touch with the latest but the resolution on a tablet with pen is/was dire

But if good enough you could use a MS tablet/laptop - write into onenote - and that will convert for you

Or you can use paper and scan in and read it with a OCR which will convert it to text for you

You might have to write a bit neater / use block capitals - but again things might have moved on

 

[DG web consultancy]

The OCR options vary in how good they are and handwriting does vary in legibility. If don't go with a tablet option then for scanning documents a Doxie scanner can come in handy, although your phone is probably good enough if prefer that.

Evernote has an OCR feature which at the very least can help make your documents searchable.

Haven't used these personally but some of the better OCR readers out there include:

• Nuance PaperPort Professional
• Abbyy FineReader
  
• Soda PDF
  
• Adobe Acrobat DC

Don't know if it's a good option but audio recording could potentially be transcribed faster. Like with anything though it depends on the quality of the input.

 

[Newchodge]

When I attend a whole day seminar or training course I end up scribbling several pages of A4 notes. I then go home and spend hours typing them up!

How often do you then refer to those notes?

You may find it more efficient to listen to the presentations and write relevant bullet points for each session. The problem, I find, with scribbling pages of notes is that I don't mentally process what I hear - the words go in the ears and come out of the pen without pausing on the way through. If you listen then note briefly the main pointsyou have just heard, you may get more from it.

 

[ffox]

Another vote for OneNote. It's available for use on Windows, Android and IoS. The transcription won't be word perfect but, as already pointed out, the documents are searchable.

If I'm working on a site where I'm not allowed to connect to my personal data, I often hand write note on a paper pad and either scan or photograph the pages (Office Lens using a smart phone) to PDF.

 

[7Tom7]

I use a product called livescribe. You use a special pen and paper and your notes are digitised. If you have neat handwriting it will auto transcript to word.

Alternatively use livescribe and evernote so you can search for words in your hand written notes.

I’ve been using livescribe for years now and like having a digital copy of all my notes.