Reduced document stroke storage

1. An apparatus comprising:

a handwriting input device that receives input stroke data;

a processor; and

a memory that stores code executable by the processor to:

identify a handwritten character from the stroke data;

determine a deviation between the stroke data corresponding to the handwritten character and a reference character corresponding to the handwritten character;

map the handwritten character to a font character of a user-specific font set based on the stroke data deviation; and

create a file storing a character encoding corresponding to the font character of a user-specific font set.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the reference character is preexisting font character of a user-specific font set associated with a user of the apparatus, and wherein mapping the handwritten character to a font character of a user-specific font set comprises the processor:

determining whether the deviation between the stroke data stroke data corresponding to the handwritten character is within a threshold amount of deviation;

selecting the reference character, in response to the stroke data being within the threshold amount of deviation; and

generating a new font character for the user-specific font set based on the stroke data, in response to the stroke data not being within the threshold amount of deviation.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the user-specific font set comprises a plurality of variants of a text character corresponding to the handwritten character, wherein selecting a matching font character comprises selecting a best fitting variant based on the stroke data.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor further:

reads the file; and

displays a text character indicated by the character encoding using the font character of a user-specific font set.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the processor that stores, in the file, a character position of the handwriting character, wherein displaying the text character comprises displaying the text character at the character position.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the file further stores the deviation between the handwritten character and the reference character.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor erases the stroke data in response to mapping the handwritten character to a font character of a user-specific font set based on the deviation data.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein identifying the handwritten character comprises:

receiving stroke data from the handwriting input device, the stroke data comprising user handwriting;

performing handwriting recognition on the stroke data; and

identifying a text character matching the handwritten character, based on the handwriting recognition, wherein the character encoding corresponds to the identified text character.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein mapping the handwritten character to a font character of a user-specific font set comprises generating a single user-specific font character representing two adjacent handwritten letters.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the handwriting input device comprises an input device selected from the group consisting of: a touchscreen, a touch panel, a digitizer, a digital pen, a scanner, an imager, and a digital camera.

11. A method comprising:

receiving stroke data;

identifying, by use of a processor, a handwritten character from stroke data;

mapping the handwritten character to a user-specific font character based on the stroke data, wherein mapping the handwritten character to a user-specific font character comprises:

determining whether the stroke data of the handwritten character matches a font character of a user-specific font set associated with a user inputting the stroke data,

selecting a matching font character, in response to the stroke data matching the font character, and

generating a new font character based on the stroke data, in response to the stroke data not matching any font character of the font set; and

storing, to a file, a character encoding corresponding to the user-specific font character.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising calculating a size and orientation of the handwritten character based on the stroke data.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising calculating a horizontal scaling factor of the handwritten character based on the stroke data, wherein storing a character encoding corresponding to the user-specific font character further comprises storing the size, orientation, and horizontal scaling factor of the handwritten character.

14. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:

identifying a user emotion based on the orientation of the handwritten character; and

associating the user-specific font character with a specific user-specific font set based on the user emotion.

15. The method of claim 11 , further comprising displaying a text character indicated by the character encoding using the user-specific font character.

16. The method of claim 11 , wherein determining whether the stroke data of the handwritten character matches a font character of a user-specific font set comprises determining whether a deviation between the stroke data and a user-specific font character matching the handwritten character exceeds a character variant threshold; and wherein generating a new font character based on the stroke data, in response to the stroke data not matching any font character of the font set comprises generating a new font character based on the stroke data, in response to the deviation exceeding a character variant threshold.

17. The method of claim 11 , further comprising determining a character position of the handwritten character, wherein storing a character encoding corresponding to the user-specific font character further comprises associating the character encoding with the character position and with the user-specific font character.

18. The method of claim 11 , further comprising receiving the stroke data from a handwriting input device, wherein the user-specific font set is dynamically generated from the user's handwriting.

19. A program product comprising a computer readable storage medium that stores code executable by a processor, the executable code comprising code to perform:

receiving stroke data from a handwriting input device;

identifying one or more handwritten characters from the stroke data;

determining a document position of each handwritten character;

determining deviation data for each handwritten character, the deviation data comprising a deviation between the stroke data corresponding to the handwritten character and a reference character corresponding to the handwritten character;

mapping the one or more handwritten characters to at least one user-specific font character, based on the deviation data; and

storing, in a file, a character encoding and a document position corresponding to the user-specific font character.

20. The program product of claim 19 , the code to further perform: displaying a text character indicated by the character encoding using the user-specific font character.