Using Ink in Microsoft Word
Published: May 28, 2003
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Soon after the introduction of the Tablet PC, Microsoft offered the Office XP Pack for Tablet PC (Tablet Pack) as a free download. The Tablet Pack is an add-on to Microsoft Office XP that lets you use the digital pen features of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition within certain Microsoft Office documents. The Tablet Pack includes pen tools for PowerPoint slide shows and an extension to Windows Journal that lets you exchange information between Windows Journal and Outlook.
These are great tools and a must-have for anyone using Office XP on a Tablet PC, but they're only an interim solution. The current release of Office 2003 Beta comes with integrated Tablet PC support and additional features. Either solution works well for using your pen in an Office document, but the improvements in Word 2003 alone make the upgrade worthwhile.
In this column, I'll explain how to use a tablet pen to insert ink in documents created using Word 2002 and compare that to using the Office XP Pack for Tablet PC. I'll also cover how to use the new built-in ink tools included in Word 2003 Beta.
Insert Ink in Word 2002 Using Office XP Pack
Once installed, Office XP Pack adds an Insert Ink Drawing and Writing button to the Word standard toolbar, as shown in the figure below. The ink area is a "canvas" in your Word document delineated by a blue border. You can draw ink anywhere inside the canvas.
Figure 1
To insert ink into a Word 2002 document:
1. | Tap the place in the document where you want the ink. |
2. | Tap the Insert Ink Drawing and Writing button and draw or write as desired inside the Ink Drawing and Writing area. |
3. | Tap anywhere outside the ink area. |
You can change pens, ink color, ink style, or erase using the tools on the toolbar. You can also select ink on a canvas to move, copy, or edit, or select the entire canvas to move, copy, or resize it. Tapping anywhere outside the ink drawing and writing canvas deselects it and returns Word to normal operation. Tapping inside any canvas lets you add or edit its ink. The figure below shows a Word doc with both typed and handwritten text.
Figure 2
Office XP Pack also gives you the option to create an ink comment, but this really isn't a second feature. The ink comment is actually a canvas inserted into a text comment.
The big limitation with the ink canvas as implemented in Office XP Pack for Tablet PC is that you can only ink inside these canvases and they cannot be transparent. This means you cannot mix text and ink without advanced formatting.
A second limitation is that resizing ink or resizing the canvas can be frustrating. Depending on how you select it, you can resize the ink canvas but not the ink it contains or the ink canvas and the ink it contains. The only clue is the style of the canvas border, as shown in the figures below.
Ink canvas selected
Ink canvas and ink selected
Improvements in Word 2003 Beta
Word 2003 Beta fixes these problems elegantly with a new implementation of ink and some new toolbars. The figure below shows that the new button on the standard toolbar to insert ink is now a menu with three options: Ink Annotations, Ink Comment, and Ink Drawing and Writing.
Figure 5
Select Ink Drawing and Writing to insert a canvas that looks similar to the canvas created by the Office XP Pack for Tablet PC. The only obvious difference is that the border is black rather than blue and the toolbar now has a Stop Inking option.
To insert ink into a Word 2003 Beta document:
1. | Tap the place in the document where you want the ink. |
2. | Tap the Insert Ink button. |
3. | Select Ink Drawing and draw or write as desired. |
4. | Tap anywhere outside the ink canvas or tap Stop Inking. |
The new writing canvas is transparent by default, so any stationary or background images will show through. In addition, right-tapping or press-and-hold on the canvas opens a formatting dialog box that lets you make the background any color you wish and add a colored border for the canvas.
A new Drawing Canvas toolbar appears while you are inking that contains buttons for resizing and scaling the ink canvas. And a new ink canvas stretches from margin to margin. This may be more space than you need.
To reduce the size of the canvas to exactly fit your ink:
1. | Select the drawing canvas by tapping anywhere inside it. |
or
1. | Tap Stop inking if you are currently writing on a canvas. |
2. | Tap the Fit button. |
3. | Tap anywhere outside the ink canvas. |
Suppose that after you fit the canvas you change your mind and want to add more ink. No problem. Tap the canvas again and tap Expand on the toolbar to get some more space. The buttons are quick and easy but you can also select the canvas and drag a side or corner to resize it as with the Tablet Pack. The new toolbar also lets you easily resize the canvas and the ink it contains with the Scale button. Change the way text wraps around your ink with the Text Wrapping button.
Free-Floating Ink in Word 2003 Beta
One very cool ink feature in Word 2003 is that you can select ink on a canvas and drag it off the canvas and anywhere else in your document. In the figure below, I selected the exclamation point and dragged it to the end of my sentence. It is now ink, without a canvas, floating on top of any text or pictures in my document.
Figure 6
To drag ink off a canvas:
1. | Select the canvas by tapping anywhere inside it |
2. | Tap the selection tool on the Drawing and Writing toolbar. |
3. | Drag a box around the ink you want selected. |
4. | Drag the selected ink to its new location. |
5. | Tap anywhere outside the selected ink. |
To edit free-floating ink:
1. | Select the ink by tapping it. |
2. | Edit using the toolbar tools. |
3. | Tap anywhere outside the selected ink. |
Ink Annotations in Word 2003 Beta
The option for free-floating ink allows for the best Tablet PC feature of Word 2003 Beta: Ink Annotations. Before Ink Annotations, the only way to mark up a Word Document with your tablet pen was to import it into Windows Journal. This was both cumbersome for the tablet computer user and resulted in an uneditable Windows Journal document. Ink annotations let you mark up your actual Word documents with ease.
To begin annotating with ink:
1. | Tap the Insert Ink button. |
2. | Select Ink Annotation from the menu. |
3. | Select the color and type of pen you want from the toolbar. |
4. | Annotate your document. |
5. | Tap Stop Inking to return to normal pen use. |
After you stop inking, the Ink Annotations toolbar remains visible. To continue annotating at any time, simply select a pen or highlighter from the toolbar and start writing. When you save the document, all your annotations are saved as well. Here's a close-up of pen and highlighter annotations.
Figure 7
At any time, you can show or hide the annotations by tapping the Markup button on the far right of the Ink Annotations toolbar. Word 2003 Beta tracks whether the ink you wrote was an annotation or an ink drawing and writing canvas so that it only hides ink annotations and not other ink. If you are using the Track Changes feature, then you can selectively view the annotations by each reviewer as well.
Note: Don't use the Highlighter pen on the Ink Annotations toolbar in Word 2003 if you are sharing your Word documents with users of Word 2002. When they open the document, they will see a fuzzy colored line that obscures the text more than highlights it. For these situations, use Word's Highlight tool on the Formatting toolbar. Annotations made in Word 2003 using Ballpoint and Felt-tip pens appear correctly in Word 2002.
If there is any downside to ink annotations, it is that they're not anchored to the text. After you edit the document the annotations will no longer line up with the corresponding text. Of course, you can always save the original as a separate file or print it to paper or Journal Note Writer, which will import the Word document into Windows Journal. If you print the document, you have the option of printing it with or without the annotations.
Ink Comments in Word 2003 Beta
Word 2003 Beta no longer allows ink in a comment balloon visible in Print or Web Layout view. The new Ink Comment appears in a balloon in Print layout view or Web Layout view, but it is for ink only. It opens with lines for you to write on and automatically grows if you need more space. The Ink Comment toolbar provides a single pen and eraser.
To insert an ink comment:
1. | Tap the Insert Ink button. |
2. | Select Ink Comment from the menu. |
3. | Start writing in the comment balloon. |
4. | Tap outside the balloon to return to normal pen use. |
Ink E-Mail
If you use Word as your e-mail editor and have either the Office XP Pack for Tablet PC or Word 2003 Beta, then you can send ink in e-mail messages. Ink e-mail only supports the Ink Drawing and Writing canvas, so the Insert Ink button will not have a menu attached to it. Tapping the button automatically inserts a canvas. Follow the same steps you would to write and edit ink in any Word document. When you tap Send, the ink is converted into an image and becomes part of your HTML-formatted e-mail message. Because the e-mail message uses standard HTML, almost anyone can see your handwritten e-mail message, even if they don't use Microsoft Office.
Office XP Pack for Tablet PC is a must for anyone using Office on a tablet computer, but Word 2003 Beta promises so much more. Check out Microsoft Office System Beta 2 Kit 2003 to explore pen use in Word and to see the improvements for other Office programs, among them PowerPoint and Excel. The beta also contains Microsoft Office OneNote 2003, an exciting new program that lets you electronically capture, organize, and reuse notes typed or written on a laptop, desktop, or Tablet PC.
 | Jeff Van West is the author of over a dozen books, CDs, and training curricula about computers, technology, and aviation.
Titles include Microsoft Tablet PC Quick Reference (Microsoft Press, 2002) and
Illustrator CS Hands-On-Training (Peachpit Press, 2004).
His multimedia training programs are used in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. An advocate of what he terms "appropriate technology," Jeff focuses on applying the best solution to accomplish the task, rather than using cool features just because they're there. He can be reached at Van West Communications.
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