Customer Reviews

DigiMemo Handwriting Recognition Software

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Digimemo Handwriting Recognition Software
I bought the DigiMemo L2 and have been using it about a week now. Just today I finally got the opportunity to trial the handwriting recognition. I found it very accurate, in spite of my "chicken scratch" cursive. When I semi-printed (mixed cursive and printing), it worked even better.
The software on the CD included with the DigiMemo is two-fold. First the software needed for communications upload to the PC and working as graphics tablet. Second, and this what I couldn't determine on Amazon's site, was that there is indeed handwriting recognition software included. However, it is only a 30-day trial version. My recommendation: First get the L2 and trial it to see if you like it. If so, come back to Amazon and buy the full-fledged version of the handwriting recognition (about $40).
Observations about handwriting and graphics drawing: I like to draw circles around my numbered items lists. The software was not very good in deciphering that. For the number 1 with a circle around it, it created a 4-character long alpha that was gobble-dee-gook. For my number 2 circled item, it created an "at" (@) sign. In reference to a server path, I wrote SRV05. It changed it to srvos. Other than those oddities, it was right on for every "real" (English) word I type. Exporting to Notepad, PDF, and Word was as simple as a single button click.
Regarding the hardware (L2): I wondered if it would capture very jagged low-definition copies of my handwriting. NOT. It is every much as high quality as my original handwritten notes.
If you don't want the leather briefcase sold separately, you'll need to shop for an oversized carrying case. To protect your investment and ensure you don't easily lose pens, I'd highly recommend it. The plastic casing of the "pad" is very cheap.
One note about OS: Before buying a read a review that a reader with Vista said it blue-screened his system (BSOD). That really worried me because I'm running Vista on an HP laptop with Intel Cenntrino. However, I am happy to report that the software loaded without any negative consequences.

I didn't have high expectations for this program but I was pleasantly surprised. Even though my handwriting was sloppy and often ran uphill, the software recognized the overwhelming majority of words. I could easily correct those it didn't. It also seemed to learn words that were unfamiliar to it such as "ePortfolio". After I corrected that word twice it recognized it in subsequent pages. It has a setting for object recognition as well. For the price, I was glad I bought it.

It's not as good as the Windows tablet native recognition, that's clear to me. But it has multilanguage support right out of the box. It also increases the DigiMemo's value tremendously.

Do note that it's not so precise figuring out my cursive handwriting but you should get better results if you write clearly. My handwriting is not as bad as a doctor's but I'm certainly no model of caligraphy.

Reviews of this product can be found under the same product but listed by Amazon as merely "Digimemo Handwriting...."

I have been using the L2 and this software product for about two months now. Indeed, as the first reviewer put it, "don't expect perfection but do expect a high degree of accuracy." I can also find room for just a little sympathy for the 2nd reviewer that wrote not to waste time with this.

I gave a "demonstration" speech on this product to my local Toastmasters club. Before the speech, I had all in attendance (about 10) write on the L2 "Hello my name is...." followed by their name and anything else they wanted to say. Then, the first half of the speech was an intro to the technologies. For the second part, I attached the L2 to my laptop, asked the club to gather around me and I demonstrated how quickly and easily the upload and conversion took place. For everyone but one person, the recognition was over 90%. However, for one person, even though they had very nice hand writing, it recognized only about 20%. For that person, I definitely wouldn't recommend the device.

However, my own experience is that I am completely amazed by this device. As a corporate manager who is in back-to-back meetings and as a Christian taking notes at my religious functions, I am very pleased with the success of the item. Based on my recommendation, at least 4 personal acquaintances have said they will definitely buy one. What really sells them though, is trying it for themselves, which I'm always willing to let them do. My penmenship is far from wonderful, but not as bad as the jokes about medical doctors. It has really gotten bad since most of what I do is typed on a computer. However, my penmenship has improved some now that I am using the L2--now that I KNOW I can write without having to come back to my desk and transcribe everything into the word processer. (BTW, this software comes with an option to export the converted handwritten document to Microsoft Word as typed text. However, every physical line you write on the pad is converted to paragraph so that after the conversion, line-wrapping is ineffectual. You do have to manually remove the paragraph mark at the end of lines that are within the same paragraph.

I do wish the software had a feature where it would read scanned documents. I have hand written notes from before I bought this thing. I would love to convert them. From what I've found, this is the only product on the market that successfully converts actual cursive. The IRIS product, Readiris Pro 11, claims to be able to recognize hand PRINTING, but the details sound so limiting that I haven't even tried it. I use Readiris Pro 11 only for scanning typeset or laser printed documents.

Don't expect perfection but do expect a high quality conversion of hand-written text to usable professional correspondence and note-taking without too much correction required. I got 90-95% accurate recognition of block writing off-the-bat and 80-85% recognition of cursive writing. As with any conversion software it takes some practice to optimize one's writing to get higher accuracy but not much--I didn't find myself having to relearn how to write to get the software to function with good results. Software installs quickly and without complication. I don't have the best penmanship in the world but with some minor effort to control my scrawl I was able to get an end product that I was happy with...no matter what you use you're going to have to do some editing/correcting to "finish" the product but so long as you don't expect perfection out of the box you'll be happy for the price. Easily uploads to Word and email software.

Being in the software business I have to rate this product very low. Instructions are poor at best. Training is a disaster.

For training - the software does not start you out by going thru training exercise. You have to hunt thru the drop down menus to find it. Training instructions start with some suggested samples - later you find out that these are not samples but what you are actually supposed to input to train the software. Punctuation is included - all punctuation.
I have yet to achieve enough samples to get the rating required to get it to recognize my hand printing. Actually the OCR did pretty good w/o training and I am using it in that fashion until I get a better OCR package.

The included extras are worthless. The design-it-lite that is supposed to work requires a key that needs to be purchased. What's the point?

I was looking for software that I could install to 'read' scanned documents... something like OCR software. This one came up in my search, but didn't say in the information that it was ONLY if you had the DigiMemo hardware, so I purchased it. I had to open the packaging to get to the instructions, so now I spent money that was a waste because I can't send it back since it won't do what I expected.

For my cursive handwriting, recognition out of the box was about 40%.

I could NOT train it (after the exhausting training session) so that it would accept my handwriting...you must get 80%, and I could only get 75% so had to start over multiple times.

I find it useless.

I use my Acecad virtually every day for note-taking, and love the ability to store a digital image of
my notes, but the OCR leaves a lot to be desired. As a result, I don't use the OCR as much as I had intended.

Actually, it may not be entirely the fault of the software.. A lot of the problem is that people don't always
take the time to write exactly the way that they did when training it, get in a hurry, get a little
sloppy in forming letters. The program reads your writing and makes its best guess at what you wrote, but I
have no idea where it gets some of the words that it uses. I use a lot of technical terms, and would love to be able to
add some type of custom word list of my own to its program, but so far I have not found how to do that, so I don't use the OCR much.
If there was a way to correct the words and have the software remember and learn from the corrections, this would be a much better
product.

This software does what it says. It is a bit slow on my old PC. Maybe it is because I installed it on my old PC. It handles writing very well. It handles some pictures very well but not if it is too close to the writing. The training is slow also but it has to be done. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 star rating is the speed.