Advice on inking and better input with a slate

[Steve B]

Recently, it seems like a few of my concerns may have been answered about the Asus--
1) Battery Life- I read some reports of significantly improved battery life while running Win8. Up to 1-2 hours more? Is this true?
2) Onscreen buttons- The application you guys are using for a touchscreen monitor for the onscreen buttons is perfect for using art programs, where you need to be able to press a button while simultaneously using the pen input. To me, this is a real game changer for the Asus being really useful as an art tablet.

So, given those two things, the tablet becomes more useful. Still, it lacks a keyboard, which I've never been able to get past, and which is why I own an x200t. I've been trying to experiment with using it more as a slate only, just to get the feel of a slate, and how I might use it better-- sort of seeing if I could really use an Asus. I had a le1700 last winter, and so have had a slate before. I got rid of it because it couldn't get it to be productive enough. I like pen input, but input with just a pen wasn't good enough. So far, I've had similarly mediocre results on my x200t.

Now, I'm looking for advice. Perhaps I'm going about this wrong.

A) Inking in the TIP just seems to suck to me. I don't understand how people are getting good results with this. I trained it, etc. but I get mistakes read all the time by the computer. I spend way too much time just correcting input. It also seems to be autocorrecting my input, which often turns it into the wrong word. Is there a way to turn this off? I think I'd get better results without it. Inking's waaaaay better than in XP, but I've still not been able to get good results. And flipping the slate around and typing on a keyboard is still much more productive. Any advice?

B) One Note- I've never used One Note, and have been thinking of getting it, as so many people swear by it. I'm not a student, but I do take notes when meeting clients and when researching while making designs. It seems like One Note would be good for this??? I also write (children's books), and have thought that perhaps I could be doing all my writing input in One Note, and then converting to text at the end. Does this work any better than the TIP?

C) MS Office- If I'm using One Note, is there value in using the the rest of MS Office? Are they integrated together well? Does MS Office work well for inkers using tablet pc's or slates? I currently just use Open Office with the TIP. It's ok, but typing is a much much faster. If I buy One Note, I'm trying to figure out if I should just buy it alone, or if I should get Office with it.

D) Voice Input- I never really used this when I had my Motion le1700. I felt a bit like a dork talking to my computer, and I couldn't get good results anyways. Are any of you using this technique? Do I need Dragon Naturally Speaking? How well does the Asus take this kind of audio input? I just thought this might be a good way to do large amounts of input???

Basically, I thought I ought to ask for some advice before I really get into this experiment. That way, I have a higher percentage of success when I give it a shot. If it's going to fail, I want it to be because I needs don't match the slates capabilities, not because I simply didn't set the system up right or didn't install the right programs. Your guys advice on this would be very helpful. Thanks.

[Steve S]

<<...Voice Input- I never really used this when I had my Motion le1700...>>

Steve: I'm only going to comment on your last question. My advice is to get yourself an inexpensive headset (e.g., Koss CS100, $20) and experiment with voice recognition for a couple of weeks. I happen to think that VR is an incredible tool, but guess what?

<<...I felt a bit like a dork talking to my computer...>>

Me, too! It's just something that you have to get over (or do what I do and work behind closed doors! JK)

Seriously, with a bit of training, you can use VR to dictate documents faster than even typing them. You'll still have to do some editing, but to me getting the basic idea down is priority one; I can always edit at my leisure.

<<...Do I need Dragon Naturally Speaking?..>>

...I don't think so. DNS has its advocates, but I find the native Windows VR to be perfectly adequate, and decently accurate, provided you do the simple training exercises.

My bottom line is: Try it for a couple of weeks; I think you will find it a useful tool.

[dbrn]

B) One Note- I've never used One Note, and have been thinking of getting it, as so many people swear by it. I'm not a student, but I do take notes when meeting clients and when researching while making designs. It seems like One Note would be good for this??? I also write (children's books), and have thought that perhaps I could be doing all my writing input in One Note, and then converting to text at the end. Does this work any better than the TIP?

I use OneNote all the time at work, mainly for taking notes in meetings & other inking. I love it, but I gave up on text to type conversion. My handwriting is way too messy for that to work well, and for me, having the handwritten stuff in electronic form is useful enough.

That said,I don't mind the TIP, and I find it works especially well if you turn off touch while using it - less of that autocorrecting you mentioned. I use the app designed by someone on this board that remaps the hard Windows Flip button to toggle touch - it's great.

[299792458]

what is the "TIP"? (OP)

i had major issues with onenote inking in win 8. ive since reverted back to win 7 and life is good once again. office 2010 has support for pen input (ms word), but if you are not sure if you need the rest of office, you probably don't.

vr is good in win 7...as good as dragon imo (ive used both), but as said --- can't talk to my computer unless i'm alone.

About the auto correct...happens to me too, but less as time goes on. Do you have auto learning turned on?

[Steve S]

<<...what is the "TIP"?..>>

...The Tablet (PC) Input Panel, the window that slides out from the left side of the screen when you tap on a text box...

[Steve B]

Hey, thanks for the advice guys. I went down to Radioshack yesterday and picked up a little mic headset, so we'll see how it goes. LOL!

I also went through the process of doing the training/re-doing the training on the TIP. Honestly, now I think back more, I can't remember if I ever did the training on this computer or not. I went through so many for a while that I sort of lost track. Does anyone know if it makes a real difference if you do the training multiple times? Win7 says it does, but I wonder how much, for the time spent.

Also, does anyone have any input about buying all of MS Office or not, for a tablet pc? What sort of inking/pen/finger input features does it have compared to, say, Open Office? What sort of integration with One Note does it have, that maybe can't be duplicated by Open Office being used with One Note? Does Outlook have any real value? It used to be so you could read your stuff offline, but now, with Iphones everywhere, this isn't really necessary. What sort of functions does it offer now, for us, as tablet users?

[fa6ade]

Outlook is worth having if you get it with the rest of Office 2010 as it is relatively well optimised for touch and supports html-based inking within emails. However the free Windows Live Mail is also touch-optimised.
Also office 2010 has most of its buttons at a finger friendly size.

[hunter99]

re: Headsets
Look for a noise canceling headset. They're not that much more expensive. Had a pair that weren't and thet picked up a lot of room noise.
Got a pair of noise canceling ones and can even have the TV on low; loud enough to follow it, and use DNS with very few errors. No more than with the TV off.

[Steve B]

Re: Outlook- what is html-based inking? Also, if I don't have touch input (I'm on a x2OOt currently) is it worth it, IMO, just for the inking? Essentially, is a large part of the value that it's touch optimized? Like, say, was browsing, where I can see the clear value of touch.

Also, are all the office applications very integrated with each other? For example, can I view a One note doc in Open Office Word? Is there even a reason to want to export it?

[Steve S]

<<...Outlook- what is html-based inking?..>>

Steve: In addition to typing e-mail in Outlook, you can also use inking to handwrite e-mail. A typical example would be when replying to an e-mail:

Open e-mail > Reply > See Ink Tools highlighted above Pens tab, select Pens > Messaging area will change to lined format for inking; select pen and write reply > Send

Note that in File (tab) > Options > Mail, "Compose messages in this format" must be set to "HTML" When I install Office on a tablet, I believe this is the default setting, but it's always good to check...