By Derek Walter
(Part Two in a series)
So you decided to take the leap to Vista. Rest assured, you will be glad that you did. The negative press has tainted the public view of the current reality of Vista; it is a stable, feature-rich operating system. This is especially true for tablet PC owners, who have a wealth of improvements to make their computing experience more smooth and efficient.
Improved Pen Support
The heart of a tablet PC is pen support. Fortunately, the handwriting recognition in Vista is even stronger than it was in XP Tablet PC Edition. No matter how sloppily you write, more than likely your letters will get converted into text correctly. And it isn’t just because of the increased recognition capabilities, (although this helps). You can train Windows to recognize your handwriting by taking advantage of the 'personalize handwriting recognition' application. This will greatly improve the functionality of converting handwriting to text in Word or entering text into the address bar or drop-down menus in your browser.
With the Input Panel you have more flexibility in how you use the pen features for entering text. Windows places a bar along the side of the screen that you can move the pen over to and touch when you want to enter text. You also have the option of placing one in the task bar. You can even customize it so that the folder-like portion that pops out only appears when you are using your stylus (or your finger, if you have a touch screen).
Snip, Snip
The Snipping Tool is one of the best improvements for Vista. It allows you to clip a screen shot and save it as a JPEG- it’s how I generated the shots for this post. But with a tablet, you can even mark up the screen shot with your stylus (see image below). I have found this most helpful when sending maps to others – I can write additional notes and directions before sending the map in an e-mail.
Touch Support
Vista supports touch-screen devices, making the interface even easier to interact with. For example, dragging and dropping is often easier with your finger or the stylus instead of the multiple clicks it takes to finish the task. Drawing on your screen in various applications is a more free and creative way of making use of your programs.
I would recommend that if touch support is a feature you really desire, try out several devices before you make a decision. While there are several tablet touch-enabled models, they have varying degrees of effectiveness in how well this feature works. None has yet to meet the multi-touch precision of Apple’s iPhone. With multi-touch rumored to be a major feature of the forthcoming Windows 7, it will be interesting to see how this feature develops in future products.
Grab and Browse
Internet Explorer offers a Panning Hand so you can scroll through your browser with your pen or finger. It is especially handy if you have the laptop in tablet mode; you can just push along the screen with your finger to read a web page. Firefox also offers a Grab and Drag plugin if that is your preferred browser.
OneNote
This is one of the best applications for a tablet owner. It is well-designed through its systems of folders, sections, and pages. If you use it for all your handwritten notes, you can eliminate the worry of finding where you put that notebook with those directions in it, and many of the other calamities that happen with random scraps of paper. You can also send web pages and other Office documents into OneNote to mark up or save for future reference.
The ways Vista improves the tablet experience make it worth the upgrade. In the next article, we will look at customization options in more depth to enable Windows to respond to your particular computing needs.