The Basics:  Graphics Tablets

A graphics tablet provides a handy alternative to a mouse or track pad for entering certain types of data. Anything that you would create away from the computer with a drawing pencil, sketching pen, paintbrush, chalk or even crayon can be entered or edited with a graphics tablet and a pen or stylus.

A graphics tablet can do almost anything a mouse can do, but it generally works better as a companion to a mouse rather than as a replacement for one. A capable graphics tablet can perform a variety of non-drawing tasks that are difficult to perform with a mouse, such as touching up photos or other images, creating a digital signature or sketching a diagram or flow chart. A mouse is obviously preferred for pointing and clicking, editing text, dragging items around a page, scrolling through a document and browsing the internet.

As you might expect, using a graphics tablet to create or edit an image isn't quite as easy as it looks. One of the most difficult things to get used to is the disconnect between the pen and the image that the pen creates. When you use a graphics tablet, the image you are creating appears onscreen, which means you'll spend a lot of time glancing between the tablet and your computer display. Theoretically, you can draw without ever actually looking at the tablet, other than to make sure the pen isn't about to fall over the edge of the tablet, but it can take some time to break the habit of glancing at the tablet to track your image.

A pricier alternative is an interactive pen display like the models in Wacom's Cintiq series. This solves the disconnect problem by incorporating an LCD display into the tablet. You draw directly onscreen and the image appears immediately below the pen, as it would with a traditional drawing tool.

If you're more interested in writing than drawing, a digital writing system lets you take notes as though you are writing on paper. Most of these devices come with a digital pen that handles more like a real pen than your typical stylus. They also generally require special paper with a proprietary pattern of surface dots, which aid an optical sensor in the pen to transform your scribbles and notes into the digital format. Every handwritten page is changed into a digital document, and you can file, organize and search pages and even add keywords to document descriptions. In some cases, software included with a digital writing system converts your handwriting into editable and searchable text, so you don't have to type any information. The software may also convert your sketches into editable charts and tables. Prices for digital writing systems are fairly reasonable, but replacement pens can be pricey.

Some digital writing systems are compatible with PDAs, which is good news if you haven't gotten the hang of Graffiti or Transcriber, the built-in handwriting recognition programs in Palm OS and Pocket PC PDAs. Rather than waste time trying to learn to form letters that your PDA can recognize, you can use a digital writing system to write normally.

If you are also in the market for a laptop and budget isn't a major concern, a final option may be a convertible Tablet PC. A tablet PC can serve as a regular laptop, and you can swing the display around and use it as a tablet. While these products don't offer the precision of higher-end graphics tablets for creating drawings or editing photos, they're more than adequate for creating quick sketches and diagrams or for entering handwritten text.

How To Shop

Prices for graphics tablets for the home and hobby markets range from under $100 to about $250, while professional graphics tablets go from about $200 to $750 or more. Interactive pen displays range from about $2,000 to about $3,000. Digital writing systems are available for less than $100 to about $300, and tablet PCs vary from $1,000 to over $3,000.

A match between the price tag and your budget is always important, but when you are shopping for a graphics tablet, size and comfort may trump price. Models in the $100-and-under range have very tight drawing areas that can seriously cramp your style if you like to sketch freely. Before making a final decision, try cutting a stack of drawing paper to the same size as the active area of the tablet you're considering, then see how comfortable you are with its limitations. It may be worth springing for a larger size, even if this means holding off on the purchase until it fits your budget.

Most graphics tablets come bundled with one or more software programs. Typical offerings include an image creation/editing program such as Art Dabbler, Corel Painter or Adobe Photoshop Elements, as well as signature creation or verification software like CADIX or ParaGraph PenOffice. A software bundle shouldn't be the deciding factor in choosing a particular tablet, but it can make the tablet's price a bit easier to swallow.