The Dane-Elec Zpen is an interesting twist on traditional OCR devices and offers an easy way to take notes by hand and quickly transfer them to a computer.

The package comes with a USB-compatible receiver and the pen itself, along with a short extension cable so you can attach it to USB ports where there's not a lot of space.

It's easy enough to set up and use, and to get started you simply need to clip the receiver unit to the top of a pad of paper, fire it up and start writing. The pen uses infrared and ‘digitally modulated acoustic signals' to send the position of the stylus to the receiver, where it is converted into recognisable text and automatically saved to a file.

To get at the document you've written you need to install the Vision Objects software that's preloaded on the receiver's storage (there's 1GB supplied, which can also be used as you would a traditional flash drive) and load the file.

We were pretty impressed by the experience. The Zpen successfully recorded text written anywhere on a standard sized A4 piece of paper, though it's worth noting that this is the maximum size that can be used and it must be in ‘portrait' orientation as you write. As with all OCR and handwriting recognition software you'll need to make an effort to write legibly if you don't want to correct reams of errors, but in this instance we found results to be quite accurate.

You can improve things somewhat through the software, which features a recognition training tool that takes about 20 minutes to work through and helps build a profile to aid the software in recognising the various nuances of an individual's handwriting. There was a noticeable improvement after doing this and, while we still had to correct the odd error, the situation is quite manageable and not enough of a hassle to undermine the product.

Elsewhere there's a good degree of control over the text you've written, both through the software and the device itself. To start a new page, for example, you simply need to unclip the receiver from the top of the paper and re-clip it onto a new sheet, which is a handy way to split documents into manageable chunks.

We can see this being useful in meetings, on the move or in other situations where carrying a notebook computer and typing directly isn't practical. This doesn't seem to happen too often these days, so there's probably only a niche market for such a device, but if it does appeal, be reassured by the compact nature, usability and flexibility of the package.

Verdict
Aside from suffering from some traditional weaknesses of handwriting recognition, namely that you need to write neatly and legibly to get accurate results, the Zpen is very effective and we can see it being useful for a range of purposes.

Company: Dane Elec

Tags: optical character recognition vision objects handwriting recognition document imaging portable document format image scanner shareware windows