Text pen now gives alternate suggestions with random characters and symbols in other languages

Question

Text pen now gives alternate suggestions with random characters and symbols in other languages

Matt D 0

Across a few Office products, but most noticeably in OneNote, the text pen has stopped giving helpful alternate interpretations which are in my input language (English - Australia) and started giving me seemingly random collections of Unicode characters! Examples from OneNote, Word and PowerPoint respectively below.

User's image

I've only really noticed this as being an issue this year, so it's not down to my handwriting, and I am able to work around it, but it does break my flow a little.

0 comments

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Lucus-V 12,535 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Matt D,

The behavior shown in your screenshots is not what we'd normally expect from the Text Pen feature

Since you're seeing this across OneNote, Word, and PowerPoint, the issue appears to be affecting a shared handwriting recognition component rather than a single application.

A few troubleshooting steps that may help:

Make sure both Windows and Microsoft 365 are fully up to date.
Check Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region and verify that English (Australia) is set as your preferred language. If you have additional language packs or handwriting recognition packs installed that you don't use, try removing them temporarily and test again.
Reset Inking & Typing Personalization by turning it off under Settings > Privacy & Security > Inking & typing personalization, restarting Windows, then turning it back on.
Run an Online Repair for Microsoft 365 from Control Panel > Programs and Features > Microsoft 365 Apps > Change > Online Repair.
If you're using an Insider or Beta build of Office, test on a production channel to determine whether the behavior is related to a recent update.

Please let us know whether any of these steps improve the alternate suggestions. Additionally, sharing your Windows version/build and Microsoft 365 version/build would help us determine whether this may be related to a recent software update.

Matt D 0 Reputation points

2026-08-27T07:51:56.3866667+00:00

I'm using Windows 11 Home Version 25H2, and it's up to date. I think there was a new Microsoft 365 update yesterday, and after updating I'm on Version 2608 but I'm getting conflicting information about which build I'm on. On the account page Build 20326.20112 Click-to-Run is listed, while clicking into the About OneNote button itself lists Build 16.0.20326.20072. Whichever build I'm on, there are no more updates that I can do and my issue persists. I'm listed as being in the current channel on the account page, so I don't think I'm using an insider or beta build.

I have English (Australia) set as my preferred (and only) language. I have two keyboard layouts set, United-States International and a Custom Colemak variant, but I have also seen this issue when testing using the standard US keyboard layout, both with English (Australia) and English (United States) as the input language.

Resetting Inking & Typing Personalization, with the restart, seemed to have no effect.

The online repair option also has not made a difference, unfortunately.
Lucus-V 12,535 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-08-27T16:20:21.8333333+00:00

Hi Matt D,

Thank you for testing those steps.

Given that the issue persists after the available troubleshooting and appears across multiple Microsoft 365 apps, I'm inclined to think this may not be related to your local configuration. The behavior shown in your screenshots is certainly unusual, and the fact that the alternate suggestions consist of seemingly unrelated characters rather than plausible English interpretations suggests a potential issue with the handwriting recognition pipeline rather than the pen input itself.

As one final isolation step, it would be useful to test handwriting recognition in a non-Office application that uses Windows handwriting input. If the suggestions appear normal there, that would point more toward an Office-specific issue. If the same behavior occurs outside of Office, it could indicate a problem in the underlying Windows handwriting recognition component.

If the issue is limited to Microsoft 365 applications, I recommend submitting feedback via Help > Feedback in one of the affected apps. This may help the product team investigate the behavior further.

Please let us know the outcome of the test outside of Office.
Lucus-V 12,535 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-08-30T15:02:47.5066667+00:00

Hi Matt D,

I hope everything is going well on your end. Just wanted to check in and see how things are going for you lately, anything you'd like to share or discuss?
Matt D 0 Reputation points

2026-08-31T08:32:24.6566667+00:00

@Lucus-V Sorry, I was away from my computer for a couple of days. When using the handwriting text input on the touch keyboard, in any app, I seem to get sensible suggestions, as seen in my screenshot below:
Lucus-V 12,535 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-08-31T15:33:19.3133333+00:00

Hi Matt D,

Thank you for following up and testing that.

Based on the results, the issue does not appear to originate from the Windows handwriting recognition component itself. Since handwriting suggestions are behaving as expected outside of Microsoft 365, the evidence points more toward an issue within the Microsoft 365 inking/handwriting recognition experience.

You've already completed the main troubleshooting steps available from the client side, so I don't have any additional configuration changes to recommend at this point.

As this is a community forum, our troubleshooting and investigation capabilities are limited, and we don't have direct access to the product team's internal diagnostics or engineering tools.

For that reason, I recommend submitting feedback via Help > Feedback in one of the affected Microsoft 365 applications and including all the information. The screenshots and testing you've provided should help the product team investigate the behavior further.

Thank you for taking the time to perform the additional testing and share the results.