If, for whatever reason, you want to use handwriting instead of a standard keyboard on your Android device, you don’t necessarily have to own a handset or tablet with a stylus pen (like Samsung’s Galaxy Notes). All you need to do is to download a handwriting app. The easiest to use among these apps is Google’s Handwriting Input, which you can get for free via Google Play Store – check out the link at the end of this article.
After you download the Google Handwriting Input app, you have to open it, enable it, and you’re done: you’ll now be able to use handwriting on your device wherever a keyboard is required: in your Messaging app, in Gmail, in your browser, on Facebook, and so on. To switch from your normal keyboard to Google’s Handwriting Input keyboard, you just need to long press your keyboard’s space bar, and select the new input method. The Handwriting keyboard supports many languages from around the world (82 of them, to be precise), and is pretty good at recognizing words, even if your handwriting is messy.
Of course, sometimes, using handwriting may not be as fast as you’d wish. Luckily, you can easily switch back to your normal keyboard (or to any other keyboard that you may have installed on your device) by long pressing the space bar.
Google’s Handwriting Input app should work on any device running Android 4.0.3 or later. The screenshots included below were taken on a Nexus 5, so things may look different on your device.
How to use Google’s Handwriting Input keyboard
How to use Google’s Handwriting Input keyboard
1. This is the first thing you’ll see when opening Handwriting Input, and you’ll have to agree to Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy in order to use the app.
2. Next, you have to enable Handwriting Input by taping the appropriate button, since it won’t be enabled automatically after you download it.
3. Next, just tap on the Google Handwriting Input toggle to switch it on…
4. … and accept the fact that it can collect all the data you’re typing.
5. And that’s it – you can now start using handwriting (helped by your fingers, of course).
6. To actually use Google Handwriting Input, you need to long press on your regular keyboard’s space bar to switch to it.
7. As you can see, you can use handwriting in multiple languages – we’ve chosen English here.
8. And there it is, the lower part of the screen can now be used for handwriting.
9. Once you write a word by hand, it will automatically show up as a typed word in your message, email, etc.
download: Google Handwriting Input