METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ENTERING DATA USING AN IMPROVED ON-SCREEN KEYBOARD

An improved method and system for entering text with an on-screen keyboard. The preferred on-screen keyboard includes an alphabetical list of character buttons interspersed with buttons for the 92 most common English words, prefixes, and suffixes. The characters and words of the on-screen keyboard are typically entered with a single tap from a pen on the appropriate button. However, a double tap with a pen on a word button enters the word associated with the button followed by a space character, the word "the", and a space character. If the user taps a character button and drags the pen in either the north, south, east or west direction (called a "flick"), then the embodiment enters the character associated with the character button along with one of the vowels, "o", "e", "i" or "a", respectively. The preferred on-screen keyboard also includes smart punctuation buttons, which enter text in addition to the punctuation character itself. For example, the "PERIOD" button enters a period character followed by two space characters, and then activates the "Shift" button so that the next entered word is capitalized.