iPadOS 16 Adds Handwriting Straightening Feature to Make Your Writing Neater

With iPadOS 16, Apple is continuing to improve the note taking and writing experience, introducing a new Straighten feature for text written with the Apple Pencil.

ipados straighten before
If you are taking notes in the Notes app or another app, you can now select all of your handwritten text and choose the "Straighten" option to neaten it up a bit. This won't help your handwriting, but it will change the arrangement of the writing on the page to better align it and to make it look more note like.

As you can see in our demonstration, the difference is subtle, but it does indeed work and it does make handwriting look just a bit neater. It should be helpful if you already have semi-neat handwriting that you just want to arrange better.

ipados 16 straighten after

After using the Straighten feature

Apple says that the iPad's Scribble feature now also supports emoji, allowing you to draw your favorite emoji and have it automatically converted to the emoji you're aiming for. We haven't been able to get this to work as of yet, so it is not clear if it's in the first beta, but it should be a useful feature for those who often use their ‌Apple Pencil‌ systemwide on their iPads.

Related Forum: iOS 16

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Top Rated Comments

xvrdmng Avatar
41 months ago


Attachment Image
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
T'hain Esh Kelch Avatar
41 months ago
I really can't see a difference between those two images?
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AngerDanger Avatar
41 months ago


Fine, if you don't want to play spot the difference… :)



Attachment Image
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kc9hzn Avatar
41 months ago
Do you hear that sound?! It’s the sound of a million doctors screaming out in agony!
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ziggie216 Avatar
41 months ago
If Apple can turn my chicken scratch writing to in a piece of art.. that would really something amazing.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
lazyrighteye Avatar
41 months ago

Fine, if you don't want to play spot the difference… :)


Ha! Only because I made it (before seeing your post) I'm going to share anyway. ;)

[Click to view video attachment]
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)