Bigme Global Handwriting: Writing in Kindle/Kobo books is not as useful as you may think

I’ve had a few emails from people asking if they can write in third-party e-reader apps using Bigme’s Global Handwriting feature.

Whilst it is technically possible, it is does not work in the same way that my readers expect, so I wanted to explain exactly how it works so that people can make informed decisions about whether it is right for them.

How people want it to work

Judging by the correspondence I’ve received, some users believe that they can write in Kindle/Kobo/Google Play ebook and their handwritten notes will be viewable when they go back to the page they were written on. Much like if you were to write on a PDF in the native reading app, save it, close it, reopen it and see your handwriting exactly where you left it.

How it actually works

Unfortunately, it is not technically possible to integrate handwriting across all third-party reading apps in such a slick way (at least without a lot of support from each software developer).

Instead, all brands must use workarounds to make this possible.

The Bigme workaround is to save a screenshot of each page that you write on, which can then be accessed from their reading notes app.

So, you write on the page, and tap the ‘Save‘ button (which is an ‘up‘ or ‘down‘ arrow, depending on whether you want to go to the next page or stay on the same page) and both the text and your handwriting are saved onto the Bigme tablet as a PNG file. And, importantly, your handwriting vanishes from the page in the third-party reading app. As far as I can tell, there is no way of telling if you ever made handwritten notes on a particular page.

Tapping the ‘Menu‘ button allows you to access all your reading notes in one of Bigme’s native apps – essentially screenshots of all the pages that you have written on in third-party apps. These are in chronological order and can be organised by book, app, topic or whatever else you choose (you can choose to create a new collection or use an existing collection when you enable Global Handwriting). All notes/screenshots taken during this session will be added to the same collection.

You can make edits to these screenshots (e.g. cropping, insert further handwriting etc.) and export a single screenshot as a PNG or all the pages as a PDF file. The exported file can then be shared with other Android apps (e.g. GMail, Drive etc.)

In summary, you open an ebook (in Kindle/Kobo/Pocketbook etc.), write on a page, and save a screenshot of it (at which point you handwriting disappears from the third-party app itself).

The important takeaway is that you cannot go back and view your historic handwritten notes within the third-party reading app. Instead, they are exported as a screenshot.

How to use Global Handwriting (Reading Mode)

The process for using Bigme’s Global Handwriting feature in third-party reading apps is thus:

1. Open an ebook in a third-party reader (such as Kindle, Kobo, Pocketbook, Google Play etc.)
2. Enable Global Handwriting by swiping down from the top-right corner (to bring up the Control Centre) and tapping the Global Handwriting button.
3. Tap the toggle switch to turn Global Handwriting on and select ‘Read Mode’. Note: there are two other modes (Handwriting mode and Picture mode) which I will discuss briefly later in this article.
4. Create a new collection for your current notes (for organisation purposes) or select an existing collection.
5. Add your handwritten notes to the page.
6. Tap the ‘up‘ or ‘down‘ buttons on the left of the screen to save your notes. After a moment, your handwriting is erased from the page and a screenshot of the page (including both text and handwriting) is saved to local storage.
7. Tap the ‘Menu‘ button to view all of the screenshots (book pages with handwriting) you’ve saved. These open up in a native Bigme app and can be edited and exported.

It’s quite difficult to explain in writing, so apologies if this does not make sense. For this reason, I’ve also made a quick-and-dirty video to demonstrate the process:

Other Global Handwriting Modes

As noted earlier, Bigme Global Handwriting offers two other modes:

Handwriting mode:

This is designed to be used with third-party apps that have inherent stylus support (e.g. OneNote, Evernote etc.)

These apps have been developed to be used with conventional LCD/OLED screens, which have much faster screen refresh rates. Because of the slower refresh rates of e-ink screen, the performance of writing in these apps leads to a lot of latency with pen strokes, which requires a different workaround.

Instead of processing the strokes in the third-party app, which is slow, Handwriting Mode initially renders the strokes locally (so that they are faster and smoother as you write) and then sends the stroke information to the app a few seconds later (you’ll view a screen refresh as the local strokes are changed to actual strokes in the app).

It’s not an ideal solution and still has several issues (e.g. if the local brush type/thickness doesn’t match that of the third-party app then what you thought you originally wrote will not exactly match what appears after the refresh) but it does make it somewhat more usable.

Picture mode:

It took me a while to figure this one out (and I’m still not sure if I understand it correctly) but it seems to work pretty much the same as Read mode, except you take the screenshot by swiping down from the top-right and tapping the screenshot button.

The differences are that you can use it on any screen (home screen, menus, pictures, any third-party app etc.) and the screenshots are saved in your local Pictures folder (not in a collection).

Solutions from other brands

I believe that Bigme were the vanguard of Global Handwriting, being the first to offer the ability to handwrite on any screen and save a copy of it.

But it would be remiss of me not to mention that the same or similar features are available from other brands. Here’s a rundown of the ones I know of…

Boox Freemark

Newer Boox devices have a feature called Freemark.

It works in pretty much the same way as Bigme Global Handwriting but only has one mode, and collections of screenshots are stored in a subfolder of your local Pictures folder (you can choose the name yourself for organisation purposes). I find Boox’s implementation simpler to use.

Boox devices also improve the performance of apps like OneNote in the same way (except you don’t have to toggle anything on/off – it is enabled by default).

Kindle Scribe

With the Kindle Scribe, you can write on some e-books that you buy from the Kindle Store. You can also insert handwritten sticky notes (when you insert a sticky note, a tiny icon is shown in the books text at the position you selection, and when you tap on it, your sticky note (with you handwriting) is displayed.

But of course, you cannot install any alternative third-party e-reading software (such as Kobo, Google Play etc.) on Kindle devices.

Kobo

Similarly, with Kobo, you can write on some ebooks but again, you are limited to using only Kobo’s e-reading software.

My verdict

E-Ink tablet brands have a big challenge on their hands to provide the ability to insert handwritten notes into third-party apps. Technically, it’s not really possible to make this seamlessly available in someone else’s app. But Bigme have made a decent attempt at managing this, and kudos to them for this.

Unfortunately, for me, the functionality is not really all that useful because the handwritten annotations are kept separate from the book itself. I can’t leaf through a book in a third-party and see what I wrote on the actual page. Instead, I have to open up a collection of screenshots and scroll through that instead. And because the pages where I have not made any notes are not in the collection, it is possible to lose vital context.

Personally, I would rather use Kindle’s highlighting and text notes feature (using the on-screen keyboard rather than the stylus) because these notes are merged into the book and app itself and can be tapped on and viewed as the book is read.

But that is just me. I’m sure that there are plenty of use cases where Bigme’s Global Handwriting feature will be a benefit.

Bigme devices are available from Amazon and the Bigme Store

Boox devices are available from Amazon, the Boox Store, and the Boox Euro Store