What is ritePen?
How Does ritePen Work?
Entering Text
Gestures
Word Menu
Handwritten Shortcuts
User Dictionary
Main Menu
Settings
Floating Toolbar
Auto-Upgrades
ritePen is an easy-to-use and powerful handwriting recognition
application. It allows you to write anywhere on the screen of your Tablet PC, on an electronic
whiteboard, with your pen tablet, or even with a mouse or on a touchpad. ritePen instantly
converts your handwriting into text and enters the text
into any Windows application, such as Microsoft Word, Notepad,
Excel, Outlook, File Manager, Internet Explorer, etc.
ritePen software
understands any handwritten style, does not require learning or training: just write continuously, in whole sentences, on multiple lines of text, and your writing will
be automatically segmented into words and entered into the needed document or application.
ritePen software supports simple and reliable gestures for common operations like adding a line
break or space, deleting a wrong letter, copying and pasting, or adding punctuation and special
signs via the pop-up keyboard. It also allows you to choose variants of
recognized words from the answer list.
ritePen software does not interfere with your regular use of a PC. Unlike
other pen input applications, it intelligently detects scrollbars, menus, resizing areas, and other navigational and designated elements of application windows and allows seamless
manipulation and navigation within your desktop application. ritePen application
can also be manually switched between writing and mouse mode by single tap.
This version
of ritePen software recognizes English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish
handwriting;
simply switch your keyboard layout to another language and write - ritePen application
will
follow your workflow. More languages are under development. You can also add single
words, import word lists directly from documents or even add your whole Outlook Address Book to ritePen's custom
User Dictionary for better recognition of uncommon terms.
With ritePen, you can automate
all your routine desktop tasks by creating and using Handwritten Shortcuts:
putting your signature in a document, pasting common texts without looking for them, opening favorite websites or frequently used documents
are now at your fingertips.
Unlike other handwriting recognition
utilities, ritePen seamlessly works over Citrix and RDP protocols, which is important
for data input in many industries.
When ritePen software is running
on a Tablet PC or a Windows Vista PC, it further improves recognition accuracy by
combining riteScript with the embedded handwriting recognition engine, providing
industry's best recognition accuracy.
We are constantly improving ritePen's features,
handwriting recognition accuracy and usability. You can check for new upgrades at any time by clicking the Check
For Upgrade button in the About box.
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ritePen receives your handwriting, stroke by stroke,
from a pen-enabled device and passes the
strokes to the advanced "third generation" riteScript® handwriting recognition engine, which converts
your handwriting into text. You write as you normally do, in words and
phrases, and riteScript technology automatically segments your handwriting into words
and lines. When you finished writing, ritePen receives the recognized text
from riteScript, deletes handwritten strokes from the screen, and enters the text
into the active text-enabled application, placing the text at the current
position of the cursor. ritePen also recognizes your
gestures and uses them to perform common operations like adding a
space or a line break, deleting wrong symbols, or offering a list of
answers. ritePen does not interfere with your regular navigation and
control operations, such as pointing and clicking, dragging application
windows, selecting portions of text, etc.
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Launch ritePen by opening it from the Start>Programs menu>EverNote>ritePen.
The ritePen notification icon
appears in the Windows Taskbar.
Now ritePen is ready to accept your writing anywhere on the screen and
convert it into text. Open any text-enabled application, for example,
Notepad, and write a few words on the screen.
Note the screen cursor changing to the pen style as you start writing.
Once you complete writing, the converted text appears in the Notepad and
your handwriting disappears from the screen.
What if you want to drag a window of an application or scroll through a
document? ritePen will not interfere with your actions in most Windows
applications. In other words, if you drag an application window holding
your pen on its title bar, or scroll the window using your pen, or press
menu or toolbar buttons, your actions will not be interpreted as writing a
new word. For this reason, you should always start a new
portion of your writing outside title bars, scrollbars, toolbars
or menus of application windows. However, you can freely cross all such bars and menus while you are writing.
In order to select a word in the typed text, double tap on it. To select a fragment
of the text, tap and hold at the beginning of selection area.
Then drag the pen, as you typically do with a mouse.
The initial holding time is slightly longer than with a mouse, because
ritePen needs a short time to realize that you intended selection and
not writing. Sometimes, a line may be drawn through your selected fragment
of the text; stop dragging at the end of your selection, continue holding the pen down until the line disappears and turns into the selection. If your work involves extensive text selection,
you may choose to temporarily disable ritePen by tapping on its
notification icon in the taskbar or ritePen toolbar. Its appearance will
change to
.
Tap on the icon again to re-enable
ritePen
.
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ritePen supports several simple gestures which perform basic
editing operations on the text without touching the keyboard. Each gesture
must be written in one continuous stroke, as shown in the table
below. The starting dot shows the beginning point of each stroke.
 |
Line break (down then left, horizontal part at least twice as long as the vertical one)
Inserts line break at the current position of the text cursor in the active application.
|
 |
Space (down then right, horizontal part at least twice as long as the vertical
one)
Inserts space at the current cursor position.
|
 |
Tab (up then right, horizontal part
at least twice as long as the vertical
one)
Inserts tab at the current cursor position.
|
 |
Undo (up then left, horizontal part
at least twice as long as the vertical
one)
Undoes the previous action(s).
|
 |
Backspace (right to left, not too short, keep the stroke horizontal)
Deletes the symbol immediately preceding the current position of the text cursor or the selected text in the active application. |
 |
WordMenu (down then up, writing over the downward part; keep the strokes vertical)
Retrieves the list of answers for all words for the most recent portion of your writing.
|
 |
Punctuation pane (up then down, writing over the upward part; keep the strokes
vertical)
Launches the pane with punctuation signs and special symbols. Click on a symbol to add it to the text at the
current cursor position.
|
 |
Copy (left then right, writing over the leftward part; keep the strokes horizontal)
Copies the selected object into the system clipboard (same as pressing Ctrl-C)
|
 |
Cut (right then left, writing over the rightward part; keep the strokes horizontal)
Cuts the selected object into the system clipboard (same as pressing Ctrl-X).
|
 |
Paste (right-up then right-down, symmetrical, at the angle of about 45 degrees)
Pastes an object from the system clipboard to the current cursor position of the
active window (same as
pressing Ctrl-V).
|
Additionally,
the Capitalization gesture - a straight-up vertical stroke alternating
the letter case, is available in the Word Menu as explained in the next section.
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ritePen WordMenu displays the list alternative recognition answers and allows correcting recognized text
and selecting answers for recognized words. It lists the best answers
on top and alternatives results below them. Click
on any item to substitute the top word with the
chosen one.
If there are no correct variants in the list, you can correct words in the
top (boldfaced)
line by directly overwriting incorrect letters:
You can also use gestures to add space, remove
letters, and capitalize them. All these gestures are "positional": the desired action happens at the point where the gesture
was started.
Use the "space" gesture to split a word into two
or create a space to write-in a missing letter:
(here, the "space" gesture was started between letters 'W' and 'o' and
this is where the space will be inserted).
Use the "backspace" gesture to remove a letter (in the example
below, the gesture was started at
the letter 'o', so it is the one to be removed).
Use the "capitalize" gesture (a line straight up) to alternate a letter case (this gesture started from the capital letter
'W' up will turn it into the lower case).
-
The WordMenu window normally appears near the current position of the mouse pointer and then slowly fades
away. You may pin its position to a desired location on the
screen by clicking the "pin" icon in the left top corner of the window. After that, you may drag the window where you
want it to be placed on the screen using the top bar.
- To make
sure your changes in the Word Menu are automatically sent to the target application,
check the "Auto apply changes" option in the "WordMenu" tab of the Settings dialog.
Otherwise, you can use the "checkmark"
icon in the top right corner of the WordMenu window to apply the changes
once you are done with editing.
-
Use the 'x' button in the top right corner of the WordMenu window to
close it.
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In addition to seamless data input, ritePen enables automation of your routine desktop tasks such as application launch, opening documents, pasting standard texts and many other operations.
You can assign a handwritten shortcut (pen macro) to any such operation; then, all it takes to perform the operation is writing and encircling a shortcut.
For example, if a letter "h" is assigned to opening your home page in the browser, then writing and encircling the letter
will launch the default browser and jump to the website as illustrated below.
Another helpful example is
adding your signature to a document by writing and encircling the shortcut "sign":
You can also use handwritten shortcuts as abbreviations to long and frequently used words, as a means of opening frequently used documents or pasting frequently used texts, etc.
In addition to general text, handwritten shortcuts can display current date and time.
Creating and editing handwritten shortcuts
is easy: use the Macros tab in ritePen Settings
as explained below.
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ritePen recognizes your handwriting in any language using large Main Dictionary
for that language. Such dictionaries come with ritePen and include many dozens or even hundreds of
thousands of common words and proper names; they are sufficient for accurate recognition of generic handwritten texts. Still, many users have a need to recognize
special or personal "terms", such as drug names, personal emails, scientific terms, names of friends and co-workers, industry specific product names, etc.
To facilitate this need, ritePen includes an easy method of creating and editing
custom User Dictionary for any language. You can add and delete additional words
to the User Dictionary manually at any time;
import then from text files, such as clinical reports, contracts, educational materials; import new terms directly from
the Windows Clipboard or from the Microsoft® Office Outlook®'s Personal Address Book. ritePen will automatically extract only new terms
from the imported source and offer you a preview where you will see the words absent in the main dictionary and in the previously created portion of
the User Dictionary.
With this incremental method of building User Dictionary based on your real-life experiences, you avoid
excessive research and overloading User Dictionary with excessively large word sets
that can slow
down handwriting recognition and degrade its accuracy.
Below is an illusrration of importing from the text file (in this case, clinical
report).
On the screenshot, you can see the
User
Dictionary on the left and the list of new words extracted from a text file in
the "Import Words To User Dictionary" window. More info on building and editing User Dictionary
is presented in the
Settings>Dictionary section below.
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Right-click or tap and hold ritePen notification icon, or right-click ritePen
Toolbar to open Main Menu.
-
Pen On is checked when writing mode of ritePen is enabled and unchecked otherwise.
- Settings opens the ritePen
settings tabbed dialog, providing
customization options.
- Toolbar allows displaying or hiding the ritePen Toolbar.
- Help displays this
reference page.
- About displays copyright
and version information about the product and its components and allows checking for product upgrades.
- Check for Upgrade connects to ritePen's online auto-upgrade system to check for available product upgrades.
- Close ritePen quits
the application.
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After calling up the ritePen Settings dialog box, you can change the following settings:
-
General
-
Timeout for Selection.
When you select a portion of text by
pressing and dragging your pen across the selection, ritePen briefly
draws an ink stroke. By changing the Timeout for
Selection, you shorten the time
that stroke appears on the screen before it reverts into selection.
-
Timeout for Writing.
When you are entering text using ritePen, the application recognizes your writing
continuously. When you lift a pen after you have completed a portion of
writing and want the text to appear in the target application, ritePen
waits for a short while to give you the opportunity to "dot your i's and cross your
t's". In order to speed up the recognition process, you
may shorten this time interval. In
case you shorten the Timeout for Writing, make sure that
the timeout is still sufficient for you with your individual writing speed to put the dots/crosses/diacritic
signs where they belong.
-
Show Intro Screen.
If selected, ritePen displays the introductory splash screen on application start.
-
Start ritePen in Pen On mode.
This choice is active (check-marked) by default, so that starting ritePen
initiates the Pen On mode and ritePen accepts and recognizes
handwriting. Removing the checkmark instructs ritePen to start in the Pen Off (Mouse
On) mode. To turn it on, click the
ritePen tray icon to activate writing and recognition.
Note: You can also force ritePen to start in (or switch to) pen OFF or ON
mode by specifying the command line key "/0" or "/1" after the name of its
executable (e.g. "ritePen.exe /0" to switch the pen mode to off). This method of
switching ritePen mode can be used even
if ritePen is already running (alternatively, you can send a pre-defined Windows message to the application
to alter its state or query what state it is in now).
-
Show Toolbar This places the floating toolbar on the screen by default (for
more information, see section ritePen Floating Toolbar below).
-
Auto Pen Off, if idle.if idle. When enabled, causes ritePen to automatically turn writing mode off after
the specified time without writing has elapsed. This option is helpful if you are predominantly using your pen as a
pointing and navigation tool and only occasionally input text via ritePen. Note that you have to turn the pen mode "on" manually.
-
Ink
-
Pen Style.
Clicking on the Pencil or Pen icon changes the appearance of handwriting
on the screen between the standard "pencil" look and the calligraphy pen.
-
Pen Thickness. Select pen thickness
between Fine, Thin, Medium, or Thick.
-
Pen Colors. Choose from 32 different ink colors.
-
Recognizer
-
Installed recognition engines. This version of ritePen can recognize English,
French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish handwriting. ritePen can be installed with
different language sets. The set of installed engines is displayed in the above
box for the information purpose. The active language for which recognition is currently
performed is defined by the layout of system keyboard currently present on your
PC; for example, switching keyboard layout from English to French
instructs ritePen to switch handwriting recognition engine between these languages.
-
Enable Recognizer Fusion.
When ritePen works on a Tablet PC or on a Windows
Vista PC, it fuses (combines) its riteScript handwriting recognition engine
with the "embedded" system
recognizer, thus improving the recognition accuracy compared
with each of the two engines. You can optionally
switch off the fusion of recognition engines, in which case your
handwriting will be recognized by the riteScript engine alone.
Note: On non-Tablet PC and non-Windows Vista computers this option is not available
and the item is grayed out. Recognizer fusion is currently available for
English language only.
-
Add Space After Text.
When enabled, ritePen will add a space after each recognized
word. You may disable this option to recognize certain data types, such as Web addresses or emails, where spaces
between words are unwelcome. You may
always add a space using the space gesture.
-
Separate Letters Mode.
Check this box if you write in separate letters
and never use cursive, connected handwriting
(this option is especially important
when you
are filling out handwritten forms with grid or "comb" fields). This increases recognition accuracy for
disconnected "separate letters" writing, but will fail the recognition of connected script.
-
Dictionary
This page allows you to modify contents of the custom User Dictionary for a particular language
by adding, removing and editing new words manually, as well as importing them
from text files, Outlook's Personal Address Book, or Windows Clipboard.
-
Language. Choose the language of the dictionary you want to modify.
-
Word List. Total number of words in the User Dictionary is displayed on top
of the scrollable word list.
-
Edit User Dictionary. Click this button to open Edit User Dictionary panel:
-
User Dictionary. Editable list of dictionary entries on the left side of
the panel. You can
add, delete or correct words in the list like in a regular text editor.
-
Import section. Allows importing words into the User Dictionary from text files,
Outlook Personal Address Book, and Windows Clipboard.
-
More >>. This button opens panel with additional controls of word importing from text sources.
-
Context help: Prompts context dependent actions as you browse through the Edit User Dictionary Panel.
-
[Import] From Text File button. You can import words from any text source (clinical report, homework assignment, contract, etc.) saved as .txt file.
When you click the "From Text File" button, you are offered file selection dialog. After you select the file, ritePen splits it into words, checks
the presence of each word in the Main Dictionary and in the existing portion of User Dictionary, and lists all new words in the preview Import Words To User Dictionary
window
You can edit, remove or add new words in the preview window and add them to the User Dictionary by clicking the "Accept" button.
-
[Import] From Outlook button. If you are using Microsoft Office Outlook, you can import all names and emails from
your Personal Address Book into the User Dictionary. After pressing on this button, ritePen extracts names and emails from the address book,
checks their presence in the existing vocabularies, and displays all new words in the "Import Words To User Dictionary" window, similarly to importing from text file.
Same as previously, you can edit, remove or add new words in the preview window and add them to the User Dictionary by clicking the "Accept" button.
-
[Import] From Clipboard button. Similarly to two previous items, you can
capture the text into Windows Clipboard (for example, selected portion of a web
page or a document) and pres this button to add to User Dictionary all new words
contained in that text.
-
WordMenu
These settings control the behavior of the WordMenu pop-up window which allows quick
correction of misrecognized words.
-
Auto show after recognition. If this option is set, the WordMenu window will pop up automatically each time ritePen finishes recognition of
portion of your handwriting. If unchecked, it will take to perform the WordMenu gesture or
press the toolbar button to invoke the WordMenu window.
-
Auto apply changes. When you make changes to the recognized text in the WordMenu window, they can be
sent automatically to the target application. Alternatively, you can first do all changes and then click the "checkmark" icon in the top right
corner of the WordMenu window to apply all changes in a single action.
-
Auto expand. When this option is checked, WordMenu will include all recognition
alternatives for each recognized word. If unchecked, only a single line with top
alternatives will be displayed; it can be corrected manually, by overwriting individual letters and without
using the alternative word lists, as explained above.
-
Macros
These settings allow creation and editing of Handwritten Shortcuts as explained above.
-
Macros: List of your shortcuts; displays abbreviated name and portion of description
for each shortcut.
-
New. Click this button to add a new shortcut.
-
Edit. Select a shortcut you wish to edit and press this button to open editing panel.
-
Remove. Select a shortcut and press this button to remove it from the list.
-
OK/Cancel/Apply/Reset. Standard action buttons (pressing "Reset" undoes all changes you've made after the Macro tab was opened).
-
Edit Macro. This panel opens when you press the "New" button or the "Edit" button when a shortcut is selected in the list.
-
Shortcut type. Before entering the shortcut, use the radio buttons in the top right side of the panel to choose between the "Text"
and the "Open/Execute" type of shortcuts. The first type enters text into
the target application and the second one opens documents, websites, and applications.
-
Name. Abbreviated name that you will be writing and encircling to invoke the shortcut action.
Note: In this version of ritePen, abbreviated Name of pen macro should be in English; you can use words in any language in the Text you wish to insert when the handwritten shortcut is executed.
-
Description. Brief memo.
-
Text to insert (for "Text" shortcut type). Multi-line text that will be placed into the target text-aware application when you
invoke the shortcut. To add current date and time, use the following terms in the body of the text: `DateShort`, `DateLong`, `Time`
(you can freely combine them with other text; ` is "grave accent" - do not use single or double quotes in its place).
-
Edit Macro (for "Open/Execute" shortcut type). This panel opens when you press the "New" or the "Edit" button and choose the "Open/Execute" shortcut type.
-
File Name/URL/Executable to launch (for "Open/Execute" shortcut type).
Type in, paste or select full path to file (such as c:\projects\mydocument.doc),
full URL (for example, http://ritescript.com) or application name
(for example, winword.exe) that will be opened when you run the shortcut.
-
Parameters (for executables). Optional parameters to start the application.
Once you activate the always-on-top ritePen Toolbar, you can position it at any location on your screen by dragging by the double bar
on its top right side. It will remember the position and will
always appear there. Right-click anywhere on the bar to open
the ritePen's
menu.
-
Pen On/Off
Clicking the Pen On/Off icon toggles between the ritePen On
mode
and the ritePen Off mode
exactly as if you had clicked on
the ritePen notification icon in the task bar.
-
Show WordMenu
Clicking the Show Word Menu icon retrieves the list of answers for all words in the most
recent portion of writing exactly as if you had made the "WordMenu" gesture.
-
Open Punctuation Pane
Clicking the Add Punctuation Symbol icon launches the pane with punctuation signs
and special symbols exactly as if you had made the "Punctuation pane" gesture.
-
Settings...
Clicking the Settings icon calls up the ritePen Settings dialog box described in the ritePen
Settings section above.
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ritePen includes a convenient online auto-upgrade system which notifies you about new releases and upgrades.
It is also used to offer instructional materials, tips, surveys and other information. The auto-upgrade system periodically
connects to the ritePen auto-upgrade server and compares your installed version with the latest available version of ritePen.
The auto-upgrade system does not capture or transfer any private info from your PC to the server. If the installed
version of ritePen requires an upgrade, you will receive a pop-up notification with
an upgrade offer
and can instantly download the upgrade from the Ritescript website or purchase it from our online store.
If you are not interested in the immediate upgrade, you may elect to be reminded later or skip the offer of this particular upgrade altogether.
If your company's IT policies or personal preferences conflict with receiving
the auto-upgrade info, you can disable the check for auto-upgrades in the Settings>General
as explained above. You will still be able to check for upgrades manually from the "About" box or the "Check for Upgrades" item in the Main Menu.
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Ritescript (a division of Evernote Corp.)
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Sunnyvale, CA 94085
U.S.A.
info@ritescript.com
www.ritescript.com
Copyright © 2001-2009 Evernote Corp. All rights reserved.
ritePen, Ritescript and Evernote are registered trademarks of Evernote Corp.
All other trademarks are recognized as the property of their respective
owners.