A digital ink environment is provided for non-native ink application programs to create independent ink services for sharing between different application programs and transmission. The digital ink environment is provided for interacting with embedded or linked ink words or other ink data in a compound ink document. The user is provided with the freedom to input digital ink so they can write anywhere in the ink environment, in any orientation, and using any desired stroke size provided by the ink environment. The ink environment is provided in an activated state for in-situ user interaction and manipulation in a computing environment, for example a pen-based environment.