An API for web applications to make use of advanced handwriting recognition services (e.g. those on operating systems) to recognize text from handwriting drawings (inks) in real time. In this context, handwriting drawing means the temporal and positional information used to describe a human handwriting process.

Motivation

This is needed to make use of the latest advanced proprietary handwriting recognition algorithms, reduce the need for third-party integration. This API makes it easier to develop web applications that process handwriting inputs (e.g. note taking app).

Documentation

• https://github.com/WICG/handwriting-recognition/blob/main/explainer.md

Status in Chromium

Blink components: Blink>Handwriting

Implementation status: Origin trial (tracking bug)

Consensus & Standardization

• Firefox: No signal
• Safari: No signal
• Web Developers: Positive

Owners

• qjw@chromium.org
• honglinyu@chromium.org
• mgiuca@chromium.org

Intent to Prototype url

Comments

At the moment, the recognizer is only implemented / available on certain Chrome OS devices. On other platforms, the recognizer is a no-op (and throws an Error when used). Handwriting feature query will work as intended (returns not-supported).

Last updated on 2021-08-26