Hopefully the following will help shed some light on the various
offerings of smart pens, smart notebooks, and the like.
As a writer, I’ve been using the Livescribe Smart Pen for years,
ever since they first came out. I use it for meetings and interviews
instead of some other kind of recording device. I was always a
terrible note-taker, so the Smart Pen was perfect because I didn’t
need to write more than a few keywords every so often. I could then
click on the keyword to listen to whatever was being said at that
point.
Here’s how it works. Once you install the Livescribe Desktop
software on your computer, you sync with the smart pen. The image of
the paper and the audio are transferred to your PC. (I believe Mac is
also supported, but I’m a PC). You just click anywhere to start
listening. When you save it as a .pdf using one of the Connectors,
anyone you send the. pdf to has the same experience as the Livescribe
Desktop. Google “Livescribe Desktop” to see what the UI looks like.
I just read about Livescribe by Moleskine Creative Cloud notebook
the other day, and was curious to try it out. It does not appear to
require a Smart Pen or any other specialized input device. The fact
that you can use it to import sketches into Photoshop is huge for me.
Sadly my drawing ability isn’t any better than my note-taking, so
it’s definitely worth a try as I’m moderately competent in Photoshop.
The bottom line:
Moleskine makes several different products for different needs, some
of which are available on amazoncom, some on livescribe.com (for
Smart Pens), and some on the Moleskine site. The URL to purchase the
c for sketching is
Another thing you can do these days is use your phone as a tool. You
can make regular sketches and take a picture of them and you can type
on that picture, highlight areas and email them to a customer. I love
my phone. I got a tripod mount for it as well. I’ve shot video of
repairing jewelry and doing custom and put it on YouTube.