System and method for display of ink representing a sequence of one or more handwirtten and hand printed ("hand entered") alphanumeric characters on a portion of a touch screen that receives and displays hand entered characters. When a character (or word) is hand entered using a stylus with a single stroke, ink for the corresponding character is optionally displayed for a first time interval before conversion and re-display of the character as standard text. When a multi-stroke character (or word), such as "t" or "x" or "4", is hand entered, a time interval for display of the hand entered version is extended so that the user can supply the additional strokes needed to complete the character, before the character is converted and re-displayed as standard text. Hand printed characters and cursive characters are processed in a similar manner. Overwriting an earlier-entered character with a later (unrelated) character causes the earlier-entered character to be promptly removed from the screen.