Have you trained your Transcriber lately?

I use different input methods for my Pocket PC depending on which application I'm working with. Lately, I've been trying to use Transcriber more and more. In the past, I never had much luck with it recognizing my chicken-scratch scribble. Now it's great! I used to expect to have to edit everything I entered with Transcriber, but now it recognizes almost everything I write perfectly.

The secret? Training your Transcriber.

You can tell Transcriber how you normally draw various characters and how you never draw them. This will improve the recognition accuracy dramatically (note: I only have observational, not empirical evidence). 

To begin training, go to Settings -> Input -> choose Transcriber, and then click Options. You might have to set Transcriber to the current input method to get to the options dialog. Next, click over to the "Inking" tab, and click on the "Match Letter Shapes to your writing" link.

You can click on each letter to train for that specific character. Within each letter, Transcriber can recognize various ways to draw each letter in both upper and lower case. You can select each drawing method and tell Transcriber if you often, rarely, or never use that method. You can click on each letter shape to see how Transcriber expects it to be drawn. This also works for special characters (including the pesky "@", which I still have trouble drawing even on paper :)

Another tip is to supply Transcriber with a custom dictionary that includes words you frequently draw that aren't in the default dictionary. For example, your last name, your company's name, your e-mail alias, etc.

So, before you "write off" (pun intended) Transcriber as your primary input method, give this a try.