Abstract: The system described herein automatically defines a set of radicals to be used in a Kanji character handwriting recognition system and automatically creates a dictionary of the Kanji characters that are recognized by the system. In performing its functionality, the system described herein first obtains representative handwriting samples for each Kanji character that is to be recognized by the system. The system described herein then evaluates the samples to identify a set of subparts (“radicals”) that are common to at least two of the Kanji characters. These radicals represent component roots from which the characters are formed. Each Kanji character is formed by one or more of these radicals. The radicals that are identified by the system described herein are not constrained to any preset definition (e.g., the traditional set of radicals used to organize Japanese dictionaries).

Abstract: The system described herein automatically defines a set of radicals to be used in a Kanji character handwriting recognition system and automatically creates a dictionary of the Kanji characters that are recognized by the system. In performing its functionality, the system described herein first obtains representative handwriting samples for each Kanji character that is to be recognized by the system. The system described herein then evaluates the samples to identify a set of subparts ("radicals") that are common to at least two of the Kanji characters. These radicals represent component roots from which the characters are formed. Each Kanji character is formed by one or more of these radicals. The radicals that are identified by the system described herein are not constrained to any preset definition (e.g., the traditional set of radicals used to organize Japanese dictionaries).

Abstract: An improved method and system for entering text with an on-screen keyboard. The preferred on-screen keyboard includes an alphabetical list of character buttons interspersed with buttons for the 92 most common English words, prefixes, and suffixes. The characters and words of the on-screen keyboard are typically entered with a single tap from a pen on the appropriate button. However, a double tap with a pen on a word button enters the word associated with the button followed by a space character, the word "the", and a space character. If the user taps a character button and drags the pen in either the north, south, east or west direction (called a "flick"), then the embodiment enters the character associated with the character button along with one of the vowels, "o", "e", "i" or "a", respectively. The preferred on-screen keyboard also includes smart punctuation buttons, which enter text in addition to the punctuation character itself.