Write Text With Your Apple Pencil Using Scribble On iPadOS 14

With iPadOS 14 you can use an Apple Pencil to write anywhere you type. The writing will be converted to text in most cases so you can use your Apple Pencil as an alternative to the keyboard.

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary Hiwith MacMost.com. Today let's look at using the new Scribble feature on iPad OS14. 
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So a new feature in iPad OS14 is the ability to use your Apple pencil and write instead of type. The great thing about this is it works virtually anywhere that you would type. So not just when you're writing a large piece of text or in the Notes app. It will work in browser fields. It will work when you're composing email. Just about anywhere. So as an example let's start with Mail. Someplace where you might normally need to write. So go into Mail and here's a New Message. Now you would expect that this would work in the body of the message so I can write that out. But it also works in the TO field. (Demonstrating writing). 
So you can see a few things there. First it will work anywhere like I said. Second it will translate the letters you write into text. Third I've got atrocious handwriting. So now let's write out a Subject. (Demonstrating). Then we can continue writing something in the Body. (Demonstrating). So it's doing a lot of different things there. One of the things it's doing is it's not just looking at the letters that you're writing. But in the context of all the other letters to form a word that is spelled correctly. Also, at the words around it to maybe guess what the word is. So with my bad handwriting it's looking at a lot of those words around it to figure out exactly what word I'm trying to scratch out.
Now you can look at the Controls at the bottom of the screen to see even more things. You've got Controls that you would normally see at the top of the keyboard but down here at the bottom. You even have an Undo button there and Redo on the left. You can bring up a little keyboard there to actually tap things out with the pencil as well. This is useful when you need to type special characters and things like that. You also have the ability to tap three dots here and jump to Pencil Settings. Also turn on something called Auto Minimize. Now Auto Minimize will automatically take these controls and put them into a little button. You could do it manually by using your finger and dragging the little line at the top and you could drag it into the corner there. You could also drag it back out or simply, if it's in the corner, tap it and it will come back out. You could also drag and put this on the side or on the other side. You just have to drag that little line that's a handle to do one of those things.
Now of course you can use this in word processing apps like, for instance, in Pages. So you can see how it converts that to text. There are a few special commands that you could do with the Apple pencil. For instance, if you want to select things you could just draw a line through them. So I could draw a line through all of this and you can see how it selects them. You could also circle something and select it which is a lot easier if you've got more than one line of stuff to select. If you select something and then write near it you can replace something. So you can see it made a mistake here. There's one word that's wrong. So lt me select it and then I'll write the correction. Also you could draw a vertical line to combine two words or separate them. So, for instance, if I wanted to combine these two words I could do it like that. If I wanted to separate them I use the same thing.
If you want to Delete something you simply just scribble it out. Now there's some extra functionality in Notes. So let's go into Notes here. Now we could use Scribble just like before but you can also draw in Notes. So notice at the bottom you have all these controls for drawing. The first pen here has the letter A in it. That's the scribble pen. So when I have that selected it will translate what I write into text. But if I switch to a regular pen then when I write it won't translate it into text. But it still does a little more than just allowing you to draw. Let me show you. Okay, so it looks like a regular drawing. But it actually knows what you've written. So, for instance, if I go back out to my Notes here and I do a Search you can see it finds that note. It finds that word in there even though it's written out in a drawing and not regular text. If I were to tap on this I could select it and you could see it selects the writing that's there. I can tap on it again and I can do a bunch of different things. One of the things I can do is Copy as text. So if I copy as text and I then I go to another app, say, I can Paste it in. I'll just paste it here in Notes. You can see it knows what I wrote even though it left it there as a regular drawing. So if you have better handwriting than me you could write out your notes, leave it in your own handwriting, and know you can still copy it and paste it as regular text.
Now one important thing to note is there two requirements for using Scribble. The first, of course, is you need to have the latest version of iPad OS. This is a new feature of iPad OS14. So you have to have that. The second, of course, is you have to have an Apple pencil. So older iPad don't support the Apple pencil and you can't just use any old stylus. The Apple pencil is a special thing. It communicates in a special way with the iPad. So it only works if you've got the original Apple pencil, which I've got, or the second generation one that they sell now.
Finally, as I mentioned, you could use this anywhere. So, for instance, if I wanted to search on a website and there's a Search field at the top I could certainly write in it instead of actually typing. Or if there's a form you need to fill out you could use this to fill out the form. So I don't think this is for everyone. For someone like me I'm more comfortable typing on the screen. But there are still a lot of people that do enjoy writing. The Apple pencil with the iPad certainly has a very superior feel. If you only ever used a regular stylus on a regular touch screen then you're not really getting how the Apple pencil feels when you write. It feels like it's a big step closer to actually writing or drawing on paper. So once you've upgraded to iPad OS14 check this out if you've got an Apple Pencil.

Comments: 11 Responses to “Write Text With Your Apple Pencil Using Scribble On iPadOS 14”

Alex Konczey

4 years ago

I have a first generation iPad Pro and a first generation Apple pencil. Do they work together?
How do I get the keyboard?

Gary Rosenzweig

Alex: It should, yes. Try it. The current keyboards are meant for newer iPads. But you can get any Bluetooth keyboard and it should work. Some third-parties made them for the iPad Pro 1st gen sizes.

Lauren Eisen

thanks gary for another great and very useful tutorial!

Donald Geiling

I have iPadOS 14 and an Apple Pencil. When I go into mail, new message I don't see the bar at the bottom of the page. I am not getting into the scribble mode.

Donald: Did you try writing with the Pencil?

yes. I tried writing with the pencil. I could get the call up the drawing pallet, but not the scribble pallet you showed.

Sorry. Actually, I had not updated to iOS 14.0.1. I thought I had the latest, but didn't.

James

3 years ago

Hello I am trying to use scribble to fill in a pdf with markup on iPad pro. Doesn't work. Any tips please. Thx

James: Hard to say what you could be doing wrong. Do you see the markup tools? Try selecting other tools, drawing with your finger, etc. Experiment and play around. If you still can't figure it out, maybe plan to visit an Apple Store and get some firsthand help.

Mick

Hi Garry
Really helpful video thank you. I have a problem using Scribble when editing a screen shot on my iPad Air. I swipe up from one of the bottom corners and the screen is captured successfully. However, when I try to edit using my Apple Pencil the palette does not show the tool with the “A” that is used for converting Scribble to text. Is this correct? It seems the only way to apply text is to use the “+” button and then use the traditional clunky text box Thanks Mick

Mick: Yes, using + is the way to add a text box. Then you should be able to use Scribble with that text box. I just tried it and it worked.

Comments Closed.

Write Text With Your Apple Pencil Using Scribble On iPadOS 14

Comments: 11 Responses to “Write Text With Your Apple Pencil Using Scribble On iPadOS 14”

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