Smart Script is a unique feature on iPadOS that uses Machine Learning to adjust the legibility of your handwritten notes without fundamentally altering your handwriting. It’s a productivity feature that, in theory, makes it so that you can write faster while allowing the system to clean up your writing.

System Requirements

• An iPad running iPadOS 18 or newer.
• An Apple Pencil or other compatible stylus. The feature is designed for use with a stylus, but will also work if you are using the “Draw with Finger” feature is enabled.

How to Get Started

• Once you’ve connected your stylus to your iPad, open the Notes app.
• If you’re not in handwriting mode, tap the Pencil icon in the toolbar
• Tap on the Apple Pencil Tool Palette, generally in one of the bottom corners.
• Tap on the ellipsis (three dots) on the right side of the pallette.
• Enable “Auto-Refine Handwriting”
  

What It Does

Smart Script is a feature of the built in Notes app, and is not available anywhere else in the system. It doesn’t start working immediately, since it takes time for the system to analyze and learn your writing style once the feature is turned on.

Text Refinement

At the speed I normally write, I see the straightening and smoothing effects after I complete a full line of writing. This effect is relatively minimal is most cases and doesn’t tweak my writing too much. Every so often, especially when using the Lined Paper template in Notes, Smart script will try to connect text on two different lines that might be a little too close to each other.

If you tap and hold between words with the stylus, you’ll get a grab handle that lets you add space between words and move words around.

Spell Check

Now that the system has gotten so good at reading and tweaking your writing, it can now spell check your handwritten text. Any words its thinks are misspelled get underlined, and you can tap and hold on that word to accept some possible corrections. Fair warning, the suggestions aren’t always correct.

Paste Copied Text into Handwritten Text

Once you’ve copied some text, you can paste it as handwritten text using the Apple Pencil. Similar to how you invoke the drag handle, if you tap and hold near some written text with the Apple Pencil, when you tap paste, that text will be pasted in your own handwriting.

Or at least, something similar-ish to it.

I find that the pasted text is wayyyyy too neat to be look like anything I’ve written. But if you squint, it kinda sort of looks like my writing.

One strange quirk of this system is that you can’t paste handwritten text on a line doesn’t have handwriting on it. Meaning that if I tried this on a completely different line, I could only paste typed text.

Limitations

While Smart Script may look like magic, alas, it can only so much. If you have especially sloppy handwriting, the system may not be able to do any of this. But overall, this a nice productivity for heavy users of Apple Notes.