Ask HN: State of Handwriting Recognition?

I run a document parsing service, focused on structure detection like tables and form-data. We have tested 27 OCR engines till date, and we do it every 6 months. In our latest evaluation hyperscience.com turned out to be the best in HW recognition, expensive too. Azure's cognitive service is next to it.

P.S: I've no affiliation with the mentioned services

That would make a great blog series. Similar to the back blaze hard drive stats.

I had good luck with Evernote, although I remember exporting to be a bit of a pain. Microsoft pioneered a few techniques over the years but I don't know if they're still near the top of the heap. The Office Lens app and OneNote should at least be competent.

Understanding handwriting at the same level as a human requires a general AI, as handwriting is usually so sloppy that it is impossible to tell what is actually written and you have to use context to decipher what it probably said.