Abstract: A method of representing handwriting which includes receiving a pen input, for example at a digitizer (10), segmenting the input into strokes (13), grouping the strokes into stroke sub-structures (14) and quantizing the stroke sub-structures according to a predefined set (the “alphabet”) of stroke sub-structures. For handwriting recognition, distance measurements are computed between the input stroke sub-structures and members of a predefined set or “alphabet” (19) of stroke sub-structures.