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dougal



Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 07 11:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Some excellent points Judy.

When *drawing* with a tablet, the appropriate thing to do is to watch the screen, not your hand, to 'steer' correctly.
However, when writing, it seems important to see what your hand/pen has done. I don't know whether this is because writing as a well-learned and solidly-established skill demands/expects *instant* feedback on the motions whereas even the best tablet on the fastest computer introduces a minute lag before updating the screen... anyway, when I write either in the dark, with my eyes shut or with a tablet, the results are even worse (much worse) than my normal scrawl.

Part of the tablet problem is lack of friction (presumably to increase stylus tip lifetime) - but that isn't the whole story. BTW, you can usually tape a sheet of paper over your tablet to change the surface friction... A little pen drag is a good thing for writing, IMHO. Try different types of paper!

One of the Intuos accessory pens is actually a proper pen - so you can see what you've written/drawn.
https://www.wacom.com/intuos/Accessories.cfm and scroll to the end

I suspect that Judy would have appreciated Apple's Newton, the original 'pda'. You write on the screen and what you write can be uploaded to your proper computer when you get home. It can recognise handwriting or store your scribbles as pictures - your choice.
Newton was axed almost 10 years ago (on Steve Jobs return - it was associated with the guy that had displaced Jobs... politics!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton
However, The Newton Lives! Its recognition technologies (almost unchanged) were smuggled into OS X as "Inkwell" - without a tablet, you wouldn't even know it was there. (But a Newton 'Easter Egg' even survived into OS X !)
Anyway, there are (shareware) programs that build upon Inkwell (which allows hand-drawn (or hand written and text recognised) stuff to be inserted into any program.
One example https://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/inkbook.html


One important attribute about Wacom is that they really are pretty damn good about keeping their drivers viable so that their hardware rarely gets made obsolete by driver unavailability. They are professionals who have been around for a while, and seem to want to stick around.
But their idea of a 'cheap' product is still quite expensive to many.
Any Wacom tablet and its driver unlocks Inkwell, for some others you must launch the service yourself, and I believe there may be some tablets/drivers that don't get on with it.

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