Taking a Good Look at That Pen

They're called cordless pens, styluses, digital pens, pen styluses, virtual pens, or EMR styli (styluses?). They are the size of regular ballpoint pens or smaller. Most sport a button you can use to initiate a right-click action that displays shortcut menus, some even have a virtual eraser. Whatever you call them, they are the one and only way for you to write or perform mouse-like clicks on your Tablet PC screen.

Not your father's fountain pen

Your EMR (electromagnetic resonance) pen stylus (see Figure 2-1) has electronics instead of ink inside. This technology enables the active digitizer screen to sense the pen when it hovers nearby, activating the on-screen cursor; it's also what enables your Tablet PC to respond to the touch of the pen on-screen to perform the following actions:

• Dragging and dropping

• Clicking tool buttons

• Opening menus

• Accepting double-clicks to open files and applications

 Tip  Some pens even have an eraser on the top end to erase text and handwritten entries in your documents.

Figure 2-1: A pen like this comes with the Motion M1200 Tablet PC. The pen fits into a slot for safekeeping.

Although pens for one Tablet PC should work with other Tablet PC models, other types of devices (say a ballpoint pen or your fingernail) will have no effect. Some manufacturers advise that you use only their approved pens.

 Tip  Nope, not even your PDA pen will work with the Tablet PC; it has no fancy electronic brain.

Taking care of your pen

Most Tablet PCs have a slot on the unit for you to tuck the pen out of harm's way. The Tablet PC made by Acer actually provides two pens: a smaller one that fits in the unit and a larger one that slips into a slot on the side of the computer case. Whether you have one or two pens, don't lose them because you'll have to buy a replacement. Replacement pens are not cheap: You'll pay anywhere from $30 up to $100 to get one from your Tablet PC manufacturer.

 Tip  One model of Tablet PC, the Compaq, requires an AAAA battery in the pen itself.

Replacing a pen tip

Eventually, pen tips do wear out and need to be replaced. This is not as traumatic an occurrence as you may think, because your Tablet PC comes with replacement tips. When you originally unpacked your pen, you may have noticed a small metal ring and packet of small white plastic rods. These plastic thingies are replacement pen tips.

You can use the metal ring, called a pen tip puller, to pull the tip out. Simply place the open part of the ring on the pen tip, squeeze it closed to grab the tip (you'll know when you've got it when you try this yourself), and pull gently.

To insert a new tip, you can simply hold the tip between your fingers, and slide it into the opening until it won't go any farther (it protrudes almost a quarter of an inch from the pen).