Product Reviews

Handwriting recognition is notoriously tricky, particularly when you're attempting to do it without a Tablet PC or similar device. Dane-Elec's Zpen looks like a normal pen and takes standard mini-Biro refills, so it works like one, too. However, when used in combination with its matching receiver, it becomes a hassle-free way of capturing handwritten notes.

The receiver clips on to the top of a pad or sheet of paper. It looks like a USB flash drive, and can be used as one thanks to its 1GB of internal storage. Built-in infrared and acoustic sensors allow it to locate the position of the Zpen on the page precisely. It's powered by an integrated battery, and the receiver can be charged via USB. The pen, meanwhile, takes two V393 watch-style batteries. Everything you write is automatically stored on the receiver. A new page is registered and added to your current document every time you unclip and re-attach the receiver.

When you've finished taking notes, you can simply connect the receiver to a free USB port on your PC to view them. Dane-Elec has also pre-loaded software on the receiver that you can use to read your notes. The simplest of these is the Pen & Ink Viewer, which displays whatever you've written or drawn as a multi-page graphical document

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that can be exported in PDF, GIF, BMP or JPEG format. The Windows version of the Viewer can be run directly from the receiver's flash storage, which also contains Linux and Mac OS versions of the software.

Also stored on the receiver is the installer for Vision Objects' MyScript Notes Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) program. This multilingual program attempts to convert the stored image of your handwriting into editable text that can be saved as either a .txt or .doc file.

Before using MyScript Notes, we had to complete the free online registration process. It worked well on our first short test sentences, and was remarkably successful at interpreting our handwriting, which is none too legible at the best of times. To get the best results, we had to write neatly on lined paper to prevent our writing drifting up or down the page.

Unfortunately, handwriting often becomes inconsistent over long note-taking sessions or when you're writing in a hurry. This lack of consistency in our sample handwriting foiled the ICR program, even after we'd gone through the time-consuming process of training it to recognise our particular characters.

The Zpen is well suited to informal meetings and situations where it would be inconvenient to take notes on a laptop. Although MyScript Notes had trouble recognising text if the quality of our writing deteriorated, it's a distinct improvement on any other handwriting-recognition software we've seen.

We found the Zpen particularly useful for capturing diagrams and flow charts that we'd otherwise use a conventional scanner to transfer to our PC. It even converted text in our flow chart into an editable form while retaining the graphical elements.

The handwriting recognition is great, provided you have neat handwriting. If you do, the Zpen is a great way to take notes.