Handwritten shorthand systems were devised to enable writers to record information on paper at fast speeds, ideally at the speed of speech. While they have been in existence for many years it is only since the 17th Century that widespread usage appeared. Several shorthand systems flourished in the first half of the 20th century until the introduction and widespread use of electronic recording and dictation machines in the 1970's. Since then, shorthand usage has been in rapid decline, but has not yet become a lost skill. Pitman shorthand has been shown to possess unique advantages as a means of fast text entry which is particularly applicable to hand-held devices in mobile environments. This paper presents progress and critical research issues for a Pitman/Renqun Shorthand Online Recognition System. Recognition and transcription experiments are reported which indicate that a correct recognition and transcription rate of around 90% is currently possible.
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