Evernote Handwriting Recognition

September 25, 2012 8:00 am , 1 Comment , Denise Barrett

Evernote and Livescribe have been partners for some time now so when Evernote introduced its Moleskine notebooks, it looked a bit familiar. By using these notebooks and the Evernote app on your camera, you can photograph a page of notes which Evernote will digitize and make your handwritten notes as searchable as your typed or graphic ones. That’s a great idea for those of us who don’t already have a Livescribe pen. But for those of us who do, it’s a bit of overkill.

Livescribe page captured by camera.

This example is a page of notes made in a Livescribe notebook – but not using my Livescribe pen. I photographed it using the Evernote app on my phone. The search function works beautifully here. My Livescribe pen is a first generation pen with minimum memory and a battery that is showing its age. It has served me well, but I’m not planning to replace it any time soon. I still have several notebooks which, thanks to Evernote, I can continue to use.

But what about the archived notebooks in my Livescribe Desktop? No problem! Thanks to Livescribe Connect, I can easily send them to Evernote too.

Sending notes from Livescribe Desktop to Evernote.

Oh, and if you haven’t updated your Livescribe Desktop lately, you’re missing the ability to move multiple pages into a single Evernote note. That includes the entire pencast – audio as well as notes.

So, what’s different with Evernote’s Moleskine notebooks and Livescribe’s? Evernote notebooks come with a collection of stickers that, when stuck on a page, will automate some processes like automatically sending a note to a particular notebook. As you can see from my example above, Evernote has no problem reading the photographed contents from my Livescribe notebook and since I still have several blank notebooks, I think I’ll use them first.

I don’t know that the tiny dots on either of these notebooks improves the handwriting recognition of my notes, but I continue to be amazed at the many ways Evernote makes it easier for me to manage my research. Try it yourself and see what you think.