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Ink to Text is not supported in language

Anonymous
2019-03-15T03:07:36+00:00

In OneNote 365 for Business, I've written some text and want to convert it to digital with "Ink to Text". So I select it with a pen and click the Ink to Text button. I expect it to digitize it, but instead I get an error "Ink to Text is not supported in English (Liberia)".

First of all, I don't have an Liberia language pack, so no idea why it's set to that. Before I got the same error, but with English (Japanese), which makes more sense, because I have a Japanese language pack installed.

Ok, Ink to Text doesn't support a certain language, understandable. But is it that hard to add e.g. a drop down menu to select another language?

So I try to find a way to change the language. In a normal text box, I can select some text and choose: "Set Language", but the ink is written outside a box, so no language option is available.

In settings there is also no option to change language. For other office products, the advice is to go to the "review tab" and change proof reading language. However, OneNote 365 only has: "Home", "Insert", "Draw" and "View".

Question:

How do I change the language so that Ink to Text works with English (or Japanese) language?

Note: Please hire more UI/UX designers. Many Microsoft products are full of small inconveniences for users that could easily be solved.

    Other example: If logged in to multiple accounts in OneNote, you cannot see which Notebook belongs to which account, without signing that account out and see what disappears.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-03-15T08:07:12+00:00

    Hi Stef,

    I have some suggestions for you to solve the issue.

    Try change your machine language to English(United States) then go back to verify the result.

    If the issue still persists, under English(United States) machine language, try following steps:

    1. Lasso the handwritten text
    2. Right click on the text

    3.  Select "Treat Selected Ink As"

    4.  Select "Handwriting"

    5.  Select "Ink to Text" in the Draw toolbar

    Hope my answer give you a bit assistance.

    Regards,

    Eric

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-10-27T06:00:38+00:00

    WORKED

    I have a Surface Pro 6 with Win 10 Pro and Office 365.

    I followed these 3 steps and it worked. Which of the 2 of the 3 steps clicked, not sure, however:

    Step 1. I removed all language except English US. Did NOT work.

    Restarted Machine. Not sure whether this was necessary.

    Step 2: Opened Excel 365, and removed all languages except English US. Did NOT work this time also.

    Restarted Machine. Not sure whether this was necessary.

    Step 3: Wrote a NEW line, lassoed the line, and this time INK to TEXT WORKED.

    Conclusion: Language at Office/ Windows default level works only for NEWER Handwriting. Which change impacted, I think it is the default for Office, more than the default for Windows.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-03T05:45:50+00:00

    Hi

    Using OneNote for Windows 10. Solution found.

    I have been looking into this for the past couple of hours as I had a massive list of handwritten to do's that I wanted to convert to text. 

    When I wrote the notes the language setting on my Surface Pro was English (New Zealand) which does not support ink-to-text. I changed all of my system settings to English (Australia), which is stated as working for ink-to-text.

    When I selected the handwritten note that I wanted to convert it still stated that ink-to-text was not supported for English (New Zealand) despite all of my language settings being changed. (There must be something within the handwritten text that holds the language setting when the writing was done.)

    I wanted to change the language of the text that I had written before I changed my language settings to an ink-to-text compatible setting. Right-clicking did not bring up the option to set the language, only options as if my selection was an image. There also is no option to "Treat Selected Ink As".

    I finally came across a website that was helpful with the following steps:

    1. Select handwriting that you would like to convert to text.
    2. Click on the lightbulb symbol at the top right of OneNote.

     

    1. Type "set language".
    2. Click on "Set Language" and select the language that you would like to change the selection to. One that supports ink-to-text.
    3. Right click on the selection (it will still be selected after setting the new language) and click on the convert to text icon.

    Hope this helps.

    Here's the website that I looked at.

    https://www.guidingtech.com/use-handwriting-recognition-onenote/

    Cheers

    Dave

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-07-18T20:56:33+00:00

    I AM UNABLE TO CONVERT INK TO TEXT IN ONENOTE, GETTING MESSAGE ENGLISH INDIA NOT SUPPORTED

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-08-24T11:30:49+00:00

    I AM UNABLE TO CONVERT INK TO TEXT IN ONENOTE, GETTING MESSAGE ENGLISH INDIA NOT SUPPORTED

    i am having the same problem. I tried changing the language setting but even then this issue is not resolved. Someone Please help.

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