[NTLK] Teach HWR software a new language???

[Frank Gruendel]

> Is it possible to get the handwriting recognition software to recognize
two
> or more different languages at the same time, for example English and
German,
> or Hungarian, or whatever?!

You cannot "teach" it a different language. But more often than not this
isn't necessary at all.

The Newton 2x00 knows two different kinds of handwriting recognition.

1) Cursive. In this mode it tries to recognize whole words, for which it
refers to a built-in dictionary. This dictionary is part of the ROM and
cannot be canged to another language through software. The only way to
change the language is by replacing the ROM board.

2) Printed. In this mode the Newton tries to recognize letters. Where a word
ends is figured out by looking at the letter spacing and the time elapsed
between any two letters. In my utterly unimportant opinion this mode is
about ten million times better (and also faster) than cursive. If Doug, who
fortunately never tires of improving my English, wouldn't slap my wrists
immediately if I did, I'd say "your mileage may vary".

Printed mode should work fine for as long as the Netwon knows the characters
at all. I have, for example, never had a problem getting German umlauts
recognized with a Newton running an English OS. I'm not too familiar with
Hungarian, but if you set the Newton to "Printed" and enter the special
characters that aren't in the English language, you could easily find out.

Frank

-- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de