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Ask HN: Reccomendation, Hand Written Notes to Text File, Smart-Pen

5 points by Vekz ↗ HN
I want to set something up where I can write on pen and paper and convert it to a text file. I do a daily org-mode journal file that I would like to append to with text data from a hand written source. I'm looking at "Smart Pens" like LiveScribe. There are a few models and not clear what the to-text support is on each. Hoping some one else has experience here.

3 comments

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zachlatta
I've looked into automated services and have always ended up just hiring someone overseas for cheap from a place like https://upwork.com to do the transcription.

I've had success creating videos as training materials hat very specifically go over how I want the task done and exactly how I want the resulting text file to look.

runjake
These smart pens are dumb and not worth the cost/trouble. Focus on improving your handwriting and then write stuff down on normal paper and use a decent handwriting OCR.

Even the one Microsoft developed for OneNote/etc is pretty good.

amjaeger
I know you're looking for paper, but I've had a lot of success with a tablet with a digitizer and stylus. I have a sony vaio duo 13 - only because when I bought it the surface pro wasn't great yet. It uses the ntrig pen used for the current surface pros. Microsoft's handwriting -> text is fairly robust.