Cursive sucks

[HeyCori]

I'm experimenting with using a pen on my tablet instead of my onscreen keyboard for quick replies and it's much easier to write in cursive. I grew up using cursive but I haven't used it in years. Now it seems like the most impossible thing in the world. I'm constantly having to slow down and think about certain letters. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

Do you use your stylus to write? How is it working out for you?

 

[bo_woods]

I use my stylus to write pretty often on my Surface Pro 3

It works very well and is accurate 99.9% of the time. That .1% of inaccuracy is when I need to write in numbers. My fives no matter how I write them always get registered as S's.

Although I mostly just type. Writing is slower than just tapping a letter key.

 

[elindalyne]

Apparently my k's are super strange as I can rarely get those to register as k's and not u's....

 

[rmeigs]

I spent time using the pen. I really wanted it to work, but writing was so slow. Typing it out works much better for me. Part of the reason it was slow is that I had to really pay attention to how I wrote each letter. Maybe my handwriting is just poor.

 

[HeyCori]

Maybe my handwriting is just poor.

You're not alone in that boat. My handwriting can be fairly inconsistent, where the shape of my letters might change from word to word.

 

[fatclue_98]

I grew up using cursive but I haven't used it in years.

They don't don't even teach cursive in schools anymore. How ridiculous is that? I haven't tried it on newer machines but Windows Journal on Windows 7 had awesome chicken-scratch recognition.

 

[ALToronto]

I love, love, love being able to handwrite on the Surface 3 - I'm doing it now! I haven't even bothered to get a type cover for it. Either I write in cursive, a skill I rediscovered with surprising pleasure, or I pair my BlackBerry Passport and use its awesome keyboard.

If I'm writing a forum post, using common language, I usually handwrite on the Surface. If I'm writing something technical, with complex words and lots of numbers, I use the Passport, since it has already learned the words, and I can just swipe up on the keyboard after 4-5 letters. Either way, I love the experience!

I should note, though - I'm 52 years old, and in school I learned not only cursive writing, but penmanship as well. Penmanship is what makes your cursive writing legible.

 

[HeyCori]

Never learned penmanship but a month later and I'm still using my pen. I only use a keyboard if I know l will be typing a very long message.

 

[Brucewh]

It was great in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, but in Windows 10 (on my system) it is broken, crippled, and unusable. The Writing Pad on my Windows 10 Tablet PC is missing several buttons and controls, as you can see here:


I don't know what's wrong -- :eck: -- but this is bad! Apart from being an ugly black/dark grey pad, all of the elements necessary to use it effectively are absent. I can print or write longhand, but then I can't send the text to insert point. The capabilities I had on my Windows 8.1 Tablet PC (now belonging to another) are almost all missing, and they shouldn't be.

Windows help pages, and every other page I could find through Google, say that I should be able to see the end of it at the left edge of the screen, and pull it out when I want it. Well, that doesn't happen. I'm also supposed to have a character edit mode, see recognition result, perform editaction like joining or splitting words, and so forth. Again, no.

All that happens is that I have to bring up the writing pad manually. My handwriting appears on the line, but nothing happens, visibly, after that. It isn't converted to text. I can't correct mis-recognized words. Hitting the Enter button in the pad will sometimes send the text version of what I wrote, but mostly it just sends a CrLf to the focus point.

Handwriting recognition is essential to me away from (I rely upon speech recognition on my desktop machine at home). I would be finitely grateful if someone could help me solve this problem so that I can use my computer for handwriting input.

Oh ... Windows 10 came installed on my computer. Clean install, not an upgrade.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

What is cursive exactly? Just plain writing using a writing instrument or something special?

 

[SammyD97]

What is cursive exactly? Just plain writing using a writing instrument or something special?

Writing with the letters of the words joined together. Never learnt to write in cursive myself (too young. Not taught anymore)

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Writing with the letters of the words joined together. Never learnt to write in cursive myself (too young. Not taught anymore)

so if write too fast and the letters jumble up together, would that be cursive? Or it has to be a conscious effort to connect every letter in a word?

 

[SammyD97]

so if write too fast and the letters jumble up together, would that be cursive? Or it has to be a conscious effort to connect every letter in a word?

To people who learnt to at an early age its like second nature so not really a conscious action but writing fast and jumbling your letters isn't cursive. Here's an example of cursive

 

[PepperdotNet]

 

[Laura Knotek]

What is cursive exactly? Just plain writing using a writing instrument or something special?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive

 

[cracgor]

so if write too fast and the letters jumble up together, would that be cursive? Or it has to be a conscious effort to connect every letter in a word?

Some of the letters are different to allow joining them or for embellishment too. For example an r looks like an n and an n looks like an m and an m has an extra hump so they can all be distinguished more easily. An "s" in cursive also looks nothing like a printed "s" as another example.

 

[cracgor]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive

I think someone is going to give you an Al Gore "You won the internet" Meme for that one!

 

[Greywolf1967]

If I were you I would look into your settings, make sure your region and language settings are right....I forget where it is, but it should have been a question in set up ( about the keyboard suggestions for words being on auto).

Another tip is no matter the app or program by default your cursor should be flashing in title or body, and as you will see by either tapping enter or the word will enter text and clear the writing area. However it should enter by it's own, and if not you have to find the setting and adjust.........

In Bing


In OneNote


In Outlook


Even in Notepad ( Marry Jo's Fav )