Use your favorite input device instead of the keyboard. If your tool of the trade is the graphics tablet, let Inkwell save you time when you need to add text to an illustration or layout. Just write, and Mac OS X turns your handwritten scribbles into typed text in any application.

Inkwell lets you write wherever you want to on the screen, and the recognized text just flows to the current insertion point, as if you’d typed it on a keyboard. So when you’re working with a graphics tablet, there’s no need to put down the pen and return to the keyboard just to enter a title, caption or filename. You can also write command-key shortcuts with the pen — it’s easy to open and close windows, and otherwise control your applications, without lifting your pen from the tablet.

Best Recognition

Beyond just words and numbers, you can also use Inkwell to write commands. Inkwell provides a set of easy to learn and remember gestures that are convenient for carrying out common functions, such as cut, copy, paste and select all, with a single stroke of the pen.

While in handwriting mode, you can still drag windows and use scrollbars and other controls immediately. The pen knows to behave like a mouse instantly in these special places. For other places, you can just press and hold the pen still briefly to use it like a mouse, anywhere.

Inkwell also works with French and German handwriting.

It’s a Pen. It’s a Mouse.

You use Ink on a floating window to automatically insert text at the cursor. This window can mimic standard modifier keys, so you can write command-key shortcuts, bring up contextual menus, and so on, without having to return to the keyboard. You can shrink the window to a single button, which saves screen real estate while letting you toggle the pen between the pure mousing behavior used for drawing and painting and its handwriting behavior.

Conversely, you can expand the floating window to InkPad, a handy utility application. The InkPad app offers additional features for writing and editing, such as alternate word lists and targeted gestures. InkPad also lets sketch and paste your work into most other applications. So you can draw a quick map to the party, or communicate that new design you’ve got in mind, and send it out with your email, effortlessly.