Ink: Your Mac's Keyboard Alternative
TMO Quick Tip - Ink: Your Mac's Keyboard Alternative
by , 7:30 AM EST, December 8th, 2006
There's more than one way to get information into your Mac, and if you have a graphics tablet, you have an alternative to typing on your keyboard. That alternative comes in the form of the Ink technology that's built into Mac OS X. Ink lets you write words as if you were using your keyboard, and you can use it to draw pictures, too.
Here's how to activate Ink:
- Make sure your graphics tablet is connected to your Mac.
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences to launch the System Preferences application.
- Select the Ink Preference Pane. If your tablet isn't plugged in, the Ink icon won't be visible.
- Find the Handwriting recognition is option, and click the On radio button.
 Turn handwriting recognition on to activate Ink. |
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 Click Ink's tablet button to display the writing area. |
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Activating handwriting recognition displays the Ink floating window. Whenever you want to enter text of drawing with your tablet, click the paper tablet icon in the Ink window. The A button in the lower left corner lets you enter text. The star button lets you draw. Clicking the Send button copies what ever you write or draw into the active application.
 I can write or draw with Ink... |
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I sometimes use Ink instead of typing in iChat. It's also an easy way to send someone a quick drawing, diagram, or map in a chat. Just draw your picture, and click the Send button. Your image loads into the active chat session.
 ...and send my handiwork as a chat message. |
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Typing is certainly faster than writing with Ink, but it is a nice alternative when you need to give your fingers a break from the keyboard.
Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.
if you have tips or tricks to share, or Mac-related questions you want answered.
Observer Comments
As someone who uses Ink quite a bit, here are some tips and gotchas:
1) Ink Anywhere - Besides the Ink Pad, you can also turn on Ink Anywhere. Instead of inking in the pad, you ink anywhere and a yellow lined box appears under where you write. Pause for a second and Ink will send what it recognizes to the active text field or control. (You can't do sketches this way.)
2) Ink Menu - If you use Ink Anywhere more than the Ink Pad, you can close the Ink Pad window and just use the Ink menu to quickly turn Ink Anywhere on and off. (You can even set a sideswitch on your Wacom Pen to toggle Ink Anywhere! Look in your Wacom Preference Pane to do this.)
3) Printed Roman Character's Only - Ink only recognizes Roman printed characters. NO CURSIVE! No Japanses, Chinese, Korean, etc.. There is an option in the Ink preferences to turn on recognition of European characters. So if you need to write an accented e, for example, be sure to turn this on. If you want Ink to recognize cursive, Japanese etc... please please send feedback to Apple that you would love to use Ink if only it supported XYZ.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
4) Write Horizontally - The yellow paper and Ink Pad both have horizontal lines. Use them as guides. Ink's recognition accuracy is best at horizontal and degrades quickly as the angle your write in devaites from horizontal.
5) Gestures - You can do gestures with Ink! Gestures are one stoke commands like Return, Cut, Copy, Paste, etc... Click on the Gesture tab in the Ink system preferences to see the complete list and an animation of how to do the gesture stroke.
-raleigh
tmo dot raleigh at magesw dot com
Actually, Apple introduced Ink in 10.2. An API for developers to use was Introduced in 10.3 and refined slightly in 10.4.
The Ink Menu Bar item was introduced in 10.3. But the author doesn't talk about that. The Ink Window / Ink Pad was there from the initial release on 10.2.
As the author pointed out, you do need a graphics tablet. What is, arguably, not made clear is that you must have a graphics tablet attached to your system before the Ink preference pane will even be displayed. Also, the 10.2 release only worked with Wacom Tablets.
QuoteGuest wrote:
Actually, Apple introduced Ink in 10.2. An API for developers to use was Introduced in 10.3 and refined slightly in 10.4.
The Ink Menu Bar item was introduced in 10.3. But the author doesn't talk about that. The Ink Window / Ink Pad was there from the initial release on 10.2.
As the author pointed out, you do need a graphics tablet. What is, arguably, not made clear is that you must have a graphics tablet attached to your system before the Ink preference pane will even be displayed. Also, the 10.2 release only worked with Wacom Tablets.
Thanks for the correction and clarification. I knew that I had not seen it in Panther 10.3.9. I haven't attached my Wacom tablet in a long time.
Sheesh...
Stop whining and upgrade.
and if you're one of those weenies with a really old Mac, allow me to repeat...
UPGRADE!
Quotegslusher wrote:
Yet again, let's point out that not everyone has Tiger installed. It would take maybe 1.4 seconds to include that information, e.g.:
"That alternative comes in the form of the Ink technology that's built into Mac OS X Tiger."
Emphasis added for clarity.
Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.
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