[Declanomous]

I have dysgraphia, which is a disability which cognitively affects my ability to write, much like dyslexia affects one's ability to read. Writing is extremely taxing for me, to the point where I will be physically exhausted if I hand write a page of text. I've tried every technology I can think of in an attempt to accommodate my disability. I've been using a computer to take notes for 20 years. I've tried every voice recognition technology you can think of. I've tried every note-taking app I can get my hands on. I've owned more portable devices than I can remember.

In my experience, nothing beats a pen and paper.

I doubt there is anyone on the planet who would be happier to ditch paper than me. While the issues I have with writing are primarily cognitive, writing is far more taxing than typing for me. While writing, Typing avoids any of the cognitive issues I have with physically forming letters -- the computer takes care of that for me -- and spelling and grammar check generally prevents me from leaving words out or jumbling up my word order. However, using a computer FORCES you to write. On a piece of paper, I can draw a diagram (my drawing ability is unaffected) and label key parts. I can make a flow chart. I can draw arrows all over the place. I can literally do millions of things other than writing words on a piece of paper.

Doing these things on a computer is a nightmare. Even if an application has the ability to do any one of these things, it generally pales in comparison to the versatility of writing. Sure, you might be able to move things around on a computer, something that is far more difficult on paper, however I've found it's generally faster to re-draw a flow chart than it is to fix the formatting on a computer if you need to move more than a couple of items around.

Beyond that, your work area with a computer is extremely limited. I have to concentrate so hard when writing that I often forget what I was writing about. I've literally cut up papers I've written in to their individual sentences, spread them on the floor, and rearranged them so that they make sense. I can make a flow chart with thousands of elements, and place it in a place where I can see all of it at once, but also make it big enough to read all of it at once.

Paper isn't all great though. I can't stand writing on paper. It takes me forever. Plus organizing paper is a nightmare. Need to find all of the references you've made to a certain person in the past six months? Prepare to spend a few days combing through your stuff. Backing up paper is time consuming as well, and searching paper back-ups is a huge pain, especially if your handwriting sucks too much for OCR.

[desireco42]

Ha :) I don't think it gets better then what you just wrote.

I think it is mostly due to tools on computer being bad. When I use writing app like IA Writer, or simple outliner like Outlinely or Vim plugin... I get a lot from that, mostly because I can type fast.

And I love everything paper and pens/pencils.

[com2kid]

Have you tried a pen enabled laptop? Software like OneNote let's you doodle and diagram on a computer, and switch over to typing when needed.

[Declanomous]

I actually bought a surface pro the first week they were out. I love OneNote, and I though the surface would be everything I dreamed of. I covered some of my issues in a bit more depth in a sibling comment to yours, but my issues with the surface come down to a few things:

1) The pens don't register in the same way real pens do. So mechanisms I've formed for creating legible writing over the past couple of decades of writing are completely useless.

2) I break my surface pens all of the time. The tip splits in half. Plus the point the tip registers at is about 2 mm off from the actual tip of the pen.

3) I require a lot of space to write. The surface pro 1 is a bit too small to write on.

4) I really have to concentrate when writing, and actions like formatting, choosing a pen, moving around the page, etc, take way too much concentration, and cause me to loose my concentration on what I'm writing. This isn't entirely a OneNote problem, it's kind of inevitable for me, since switching from typing to grabbing a pen and writing would be enough to cause me to forget what I was writing.

Honestly, I suspect the assistive technology that will really help would be some sort of AI that can summarize my thoughts for me, so that I could talk to it and have it organize it in a way that I could clean it up later. I've tried Dragon NS and other voice recognition in the past, and it doesn't work at all.

[tapoxi]

Have you heard of the Livescribe pens? They unfortunately use special paper, but digitize everything you write.

https://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/ls3/

[Declanomous]

I tried one about ten years ago. It didn't work well for me.

The legibility of my writing is really sensitive to the interaction between the paper and writing utensil I'm writing. I rarely pick the pen up off the paper -- instead I use the fact that certain pens can 'skate' across certain types of paper to write in a block print that is written kind of like cursive. It's completely legible to me, and mostly legible to other people, without being too fatiguing to write.

The 'skating' effect is created by abusing the shoulder that holds the ball in a ball-point pen in place. If you look at my hand writing, there are actually depressions from the pens between the letters without ink in them, because I dragged the edge of the pen between the end of one letter and the beginning of the next.

My writing is really sensitive to both the paper I'm writing on and the pen I'm using as a result. If I write on smooth paper, like a glossy card stock, I absolutely have to write in draftsmans letters or my writing skitters all over the place. Certain pens have the shoulder in a different place, causing the connections between letters to have ink, or making some letters not appear.

Most digital writing implements don't work at all. I hold my pen at a relatively severe acute angle to the page, because I'm dragging the pen really close to the shoulder that captures the ball in a ball point pen. A lot of digital writing tools require the tool to be used more upright.

Oftentimes the issue is caused by a button' that needs to be pushed by the tip to activate the detection, and I'm binding the mechanism up because the force I'm applying to the tip is extremely off-axis. In my surface pen, in addition to this issue, the sensor is about 1.5 mm from the actual tip of the stylus, causing everything I write to be shifted rather far from where I'm intending to write.

Beyond that, I press very hard and tend to break even well-made pens. With real pens, I generally crack the tip of the pen, causing the ball to either come loose or bind inside of it. When this happens I throw out my pen and get a new one. Most styluses are much more expensive, and for whatever reason tend to be made out of much less sturdy stuff. I have broken at least 5 surface pens, which are not cheap.

The actual shape of the pen makes a difference as well, and when I tried livescribe I found the pens to be nearly impossible to use because of the shape. The occupational therapist I used to work with thinks this is probably due to a missing tendon in my right thumb, rather than dysgraphia, but it's an issue I've faced in the past.

I worked with that occupational therapist for a long time on my writing, and we set a goal of making my letters and words legible to me, and my numbers legible to everyone. I've basically achieved that goal when using pen and paper, but I have yet to find an assistive technology that doesn't make my handwriting look like a giant scribbly blob.

[sogen]

Have you tried a Wacom tablet? I think you can hold it and write even in the air.

I have bought 3 (upgraded to better models) in this past decade, couldn't be happier.