Tip of the week: Microsoft’s magical handwriting app
Got a Windows device with a stylus? Check out the free Microsoft Journal app, which lets you write or mark up PDFs by hand.
While there’s no shortage of existing apps for handwritten notes—including Microsoft’s OneNote—Journal’s killer hook is its ability to manipulate what you’ve written without having to switch between on-screen tools or press any clunky stylus buttons. Some examples:
- Scribble over an item to erase it.
- Draw a circle around an item to select it.
- Draw a star next to an item to mark it as important.
- Create list items by drawing dashes or bullet points.
- Copy a selected item as text, then paste it into other apps like Word.
Microsoft hasn’t said whether it will bring Journal to iPads or Android tablets, though I’m hoping it does. In the meantime, I still like Notability for iOS and Squid for handwriting on Android.
Also, Apple’s own Notes app for the iPad can convert handwriting to text on the fly if you select the pen tool with an “A” on it. You can then circle or scribble over the converted text to highlight or delete it. The concept doesn’t feel quite as natural as Microsoft Journal, but it’s close.
After buying Apple’s AirPods Pro earbuds last fall, I spent months not using them to their full potential.
Perhaps that’s by design. Setting up a pair of AirPods is so simple—just open the case, tap “Connect” on your phone, and plug them in your ears—that you can easily miss all of the extra features and customizations they offer.
For this week’s full issue of Advisorator, I finally dove in and came up with a dozen essential tips for AirPods users. Paid subscribers get in-depth tech columns like this every week, and you can read them all online with a four-week free trial.
Thanks for reading!
– Jared