OPPOSITE OF THE CARET GESTURE

If you want to join a letter to a word for example "car s" you simply draw a small "V" just below the bottoms of the two characters that you want to join. Then Wizzo, they will join right up. This is great since there is no easy way to do this except to use the delete key on the caret. And that is a pain since it is tough to place the caret right after the space. - Dan Frumkin

HANDY AUTO EXPANSIONS

To get to the user words and autoexpansions dictionary, first tap the keyboard iconat the bottom of the screen, then tap the dictionary iconon the bottom left corner of the onscreen keyboard. (Another way to enter words into the autoexpansion dictionary is with Expasion.pkg by Catamount Software)

Here are some useful autoexpansions:

ret -> < return >

bul -> < return > < opt-8 > < space >

ind -> < return > followed by three spaces. (stands for "indent")

ind2 -> < return > followed by six spaces.

pp -> < return > < return > < three spaces > (new paragraph)

cr -> < return > (carriage return)

sig -> my multi-line signature, including returns

addr -> my full address

hdr -> a letterhead (stands for "header")

Munich -> München

garcon -> garçon

ea -> é

eg -> è

eh -> ê

uu -> ü

aa -> á

DISTINGUISH PROBLEM CHARACTERS

In the past, some Newton users have used a program called "Graffiti" which requires that you change your entire alphabet to get good recognition. With the new printed recognizer this is not necessary, but for best results you may still want to tweak your writing style a bit. Here are some suggested tweaks if you are having problems:

• letters
  • "I": Put a top and bottom cross-bar on it.
  • "i": Make SURE to put the dot over the "i". Also, if you miss the i and dot something too far to the right or left of it you are almost guaranteed to get bad recognition. This is mostly a problem for people who write with a very strong slant, which is also not recommended.
  • "l": if you write it with a loop as if it were cursive, it will never get confused with "I", "1" or the vertical bar. Or if that's too cumbersome a change, try just putting a little horizontal tail at the bottom of your stroke, as if you were writing a very narrow capital L.
  • "u": put a little tailon it to distinguish more from "v".
  • "zZ": the European way of drawing a z, upper or lower case, is to cross it in the middle with a little bar. Adopt this stylish habit yourself and it will never be confused with a "2".
• numbers
  • "1": if you put a little barb on the top you will never get an "l", "I" or "|".
  • "0": Put a diagonal slashthrough it to distinguish from the letter "O".
  • "2": A round looprather than a sharp corner before the last stroke can help distinguish from "Z".
• symbols
  • "%" The one-stroke percent sign is often taken as a "2". Instead, use a two-stroke percent sign; lift the stylus before drawing the lower circle.
  • "_" exaggerate how low the underscore is relative to the text, or you'll get a hyphen instead.
    
  • "&" almost nobody knows how to draw this the way it looks, and if you do you might get a "G" anyway. So draw it like this instead:
    
    By going to the Letter Shapes preference of the Cursive handwriting style you can see the letters drawn. If you draw your letters the same way the Letter Shapes draw the letters you will achive surpurb sucess. To open letter shapes: tap on the recognizer popup, select Preferences, select the cursive handwriting style,tap options, select Letter Shapes, select the letter you want to see drawn, and tap twice on one of the shapes.
    From Jim Smallwood:

    Best way to make sure to get an ampersand is to write a backwards cursive "L". So, whereas the normal or forward cursive "L" gives a good lower case printed "l", writing a backwards version of the same character is recognized as an ampersand almost all the time.

    
    From Alan Frank: [the written description of my second ampersand from the right]

    draw a vertical line as you would a number one, go back slightly up and to the left as is if you were making a backwards "r", make a small loop down and bring it horizontally across. I'm sorry I made something so easy sound like a government project!! Here's my proof: &&&&&&& (written as fast as I could)

  • ":" Make the dots little blobs rather than taps. Taps will get taken as commands to move the caret. Little round blobs will get passed to the recognition system.
  • ";" same comments as for the colon.
  • Quotation marks: Since the recognizers are scale-independent, how can they tell the difference between a double quote and a very small "11" or "(("? Answer: they often can't, unless there are more letters to look at that establish the context. So if you want to draw a quote or double-quote all by itself, use the caret popup.
  • "+" make your horizontal bar equal or longer than your vertical bar is high. A t's horizontal bar is not as long as its vertical bar.

Examples of unambiguous text:

FIXING ONE LETTER

Another tip, is if you want to correct one letter just write over it. But if you write more then one, the "word" gets inserted at the caret. - Dan Frumkin

PARAGRAPH-SPECIFIC TIPS:

• "g": The descender should cross itself completely to avoid looking like a "9". Like so:?
• prime the Paragraph recognizer
  To speed the weeks of learning the Paragraph recognizer must go thru to learn your handwriting you can preset some of the letters for your style. This usually takes about 15 minutes, but can offer some dramatic improvements on your recognition. To preset the letter styles you need to tell Paragraph how you write your letters. Open letter shapes: tap on the recognizer popup, select Preferences, select the cursive handwriting style,tap options, select Letter Shapes, select the letter you want to see drawn, and tap twice on one of the shapes. Below the shapes are 3 choices: Often, Rarely, and Never. Select a letter shape, watch how it is drawn, and change the setting to how often you think write the letter that way.

ALL CAPS

MessagePad 2000

Easter Eggs

info@catamount.com

(last modified : July 9, 1998)