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Microsoft Handwriting

Overview

The Microsoft Handwriting Service in AIForged uses Microsoft’s OCR (Azure AI Vision Read) to extract handwritten text from documents. Detected handwriting is returned as structured elements by Line, each containing a list of Words, and a consolidated plain-text output is stored in the document’s Result property for downstream rules, analytics, or integration.

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Use this service to digitize handwritten notes, annotations, or form entries and make them searchable or available for downstream validation and processing.

Permissions Required

Members must belong to one of the following AIForged user group roles to add and configure this service:

  • Owner
  • Administrator
  • Developer

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Tip: Role membership is managed in Organisations > Roles. Assign members to roles to grant agent and service administration access.

Supported Content Types

  • PDF
  • JPEG
  • PNG
  • TIFF

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If your content is in a different format, use the AIForged PDF Converter to generate a compatible file.

Possible Use Cases

  • Extract handwritten fields from forms and scanned pages for indexing and analytics.
  • Digitize notes, annotations, and signatures for search and retrieval.
  • Feed handwritten data into human-in-the-loop verification, business rules, or workflow pipelines.

Service Setup

Follow these steps to add and configure the Microsoft Handwriting Service to your agent:

  1. Open the Agent View Navigate to the agent where you want to add the service.
  2. Add the Microsoft Handwriting Service Click the Add Service button.
  3. Select Service Type Choose Microsoft Handwriting Service from the available service types.
  4. Configure the Service Wizard

  5. Open the Service Configuration Wizard. 1.

      ![](../../assets/image%20%28266%29.png)

    2.

      ![](../../assets/image%20%28267%29.png)
    1. Step 1: General Settings Configure the service name, description, and core settings. &#xNAN;Default settings are sufficient for most use cases.

  6. Step 2: Verification Typically no verification is required for handwriting extraction unless you plan a human-in-the-loop review.

Service Configuration Settings

Most users can proceed with default settings. Advanced configuration is available for custom workflows.

Setting Type Required? Description
ArchivingStrategy Optional No Number of days before documents are deleted.
AccessKey Optional No Override the Microsoft cloud access key (typically not required in AIForged).
BaseURL Optional No Override the Microsoft OCR endpoint (advanced; usually not required).
BatchSize Hidden - Processing batch size.
DocumentProcessedStatus Optional No Status applied after successful processing.
Enabled Hidden - Enable or disable the service.
ExecuteBeforeProcess Optional No If configured as a child service, execute before the parent service.
ExecuteAfterProcess Optional No If configured as a child service, execute after the parent service.
IsVerification Optional No Save lines and words for human verification.
Language Optional No Provide a language hint to improve recognition accuracy.
MinSize Optional No Minimum document size threshold to trigger OCR.
Password Optional No Authentication/password handling; can be set per document using Custom Code.
RemoveComments Optional No Remove human comments/annotations before processing.

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If unsure, keep defaults unless you have a specific processing or integration requirement.

Known Limitations

  • PDF handling
  • Password‑protected PDFs cannot be processed directly.
  • Image quality and layout
  • Low-resolution, skewed, or noisy images reduce handwriting recognition accuracy.
  • Highly stylized cursive or overlapping strokes may impact results.
  • Languages and scripts
  • Handwriting support exists for many languages, but accuracy varies by script, print quality, and scan quality.
  • Mixed multi-language pages may yield variable results.
  • Output structure
  • The consolidated text is available in Result; enable IsVerification if you also need per-line/word visualization.

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Tip: Use the AIForged Custom Code utility as a pre-processor to set the password per document, so that AIForged can unlock documents before processing.

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Tip: For very large PDFs or TIFFs, consider chunking by page range to keep processing responsive. Use the AIForged Document Splitter for this task.

Add and Process Documents

To upload and process documents using the Microsoft Handwriting Service:

  1. Open Service When you open the Microsoft Handwriting Service, you will be presented with the documents currently queued or processed in the Inbox.
  2. Upload Documents Click the Upload button or drag and drop files over the document grid.
  3. Select Category (Optional) If you know the category for the document, select it. Otherwise, leave as No selection.
  4. Process Documents After uploading, select the documents to process and click Process Checked.

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Tip: For new services, process a small batch first to verify handwriting extraction before scaling up.

View Processed Documents

  • Use the usage filter to select Outbox in the Microsoft Handwriting Service.
  • Open any processed document to view the extracted text in the Result property and, if enabled, the per-line/word verification view.

Troubleshooting Tips

  • Handwriting not recognized or incomplete?
  • Improve scan quality (aim for 300 DPI), deskew pages, and reduce noise.
  • Provide a Language hint matching the document’s primary language.
  • Unexpected characters or word breaks?
  • Highly stylized or cursive handwriting can cause tokenization issues; increase contrast and reduce artifacts before uploading.
  • Slow performance on large files?
  • Split very large PDFs/TIFFs into smaller ranges using the AIForged Document Splitter.
  • Process in smaller batches to keep the UI responsive.
  • Upload or processing errors?
  • Re-upload a clean copy to rule out file corruption.
  • If the PDF is password-protected, provide the password via Custom Code pre-processing.
  • Review service settings and try again.

Best Practices

  • Capture or scan at 300 DPI or higher with good contrast; avoid shadows and skew.
  • Provide a Language hint when processing non‑English documents to improve recognition.
  • Keep categories organized to simplify filtering and downstream rules.
  • Validate results on a representative sample before processing at scale.
  • Enable IsVerification if you need to review lines and words visually alongside the Result text.