Phatware's CalliGrapher is one of the most technically complex and impressive applications for the PocketPC. Here is our mini review over the latest version, 8.0.
CalliGrapher adds natural handwriting recognition to PPC 2003/2005, supporting the printed, cursive and mixed writing styles. Not only that, but it does it for many languages too while the default language is English. Calligrapher does not require any training, while the option is available for those with very non-standard writing style. The application is able to distignguish through a vast number of words in its internal dictionary, 100,000 supported words are claimed by Phatware.
There are two modes on Calligrapher: The WriteAnywhere and the WritePad. In the first case, the user is able to write anywhere in the screen, wait 1-2 seconds and then have his writing recognized by the system and entered into the application that currently has the text input focus. With the WritePad instead, you have a pad window displayed and the text input is restricted in that area only. The WritePad also has a calculation and virtual keyboard mode, not just natural handwriting mode. There is also a second, 24-key virtual keyboard where the user can configure it to include any kind of symbols or characters he needs. It's fully customizable.
One of the interesting features of CalliGrapher is its "correction" feature, where by pointing out its mistakes you can train it to never do the same mistakes again. With the addition of its spellchecker and its auto-corrector (searches its dictionary for known words) and its statistical analyzer (a database of common mistakes made by the same user) it makes it one of the most valuable applicaitions out there.
CalliGrapher also includes PenCommander, which is a gesture-like feature. The user writes a pre-specified word and makes a circle around the word. Then, a script, an application or whole sentences or anything else that has been pre-configured for this specific gesture is executed. This is an excellent way to add your signature to a forum comment for example (instead of having to retype it all the time) or add your credentials on a .doc document, etc.
We found the natural handwriting recognition of CalliGrapher at least twice better than the built-in Microsoft one. It has a small learning curve, but it well worth your time (and documentation is excellent). On the downside, we found a bit confusing the icon toolbar which takes a lot of space as the default icons are just too many for what we would like (can be configured to remove them though). As a feature request, we would like to see grammar checking in the next major version. While grammar checking is not trivial, implementing it would be a 'first' for any mobile device.
Overall: 9/10
