In a computing device that receives handwritten data, a method and system
that maintains an association between alternates for a given ink word,
regardless of the handwritten or text state of the word, and regardless of
the position of the word as it may be edited in a document. Handwritten
data is maintained in an ink word data structure, and once the word is
recognized and an alternate is selected for it, the first character of the
word remains as an ink word (in a text buffer) pointing to the data
structure, with a flag set in the data structure indicating that the word
is now recognized as text. In this state, the first character is displayed
to the user as a recognized text letter instead of as the handwritten
word. The other characters that make up the recognized word are inserted
as text into the text buffer. Any alternates returned by the recognizer
are thus stored with the ink word data structure displayed as this first
character of a recognized word, which also maintains the ink data, e.g.,
the stroke information entered by a user or the like. Then, if the user
edits the word, e.g., moves it, the alternates and also the ink data move
with the word. Other alternatives for associating the alternates with the
recognized text are also described.
