Ten Years of Digital Stationery Consortium

2016: an idea in Berlin

In September 2016, at an event in Berlin, Wacom announced that it would found a consortium that October. The aim was to make digital ink “a universal, open and smart content format”: handwriting that could move between devices, apps and companies as easily as a sheet of paper moves between desks. Samsung, Montblanc and E Ink were on stage that day. All three are members today.

The same summer, on 1 July 2016, the EU’s eIDAS rules came into force and gave electronic signatures the same legal standing as paper across all member states.

 

2017: the stationery makers arrive

The next year turned a technology project into a stationery one. Montblanc and Samsung joined the board. In March 2017, STAEDTLER announced its first digital pencil, the Noris digital, made with Samsung and Wacom. “Analog technologies such as writing, drawing and crafting play a necessary and complementary role in the digital world,” said STAEDTLER’s chief executive, at the time. LAMY later followed with a digital version of its AL-star.

The same year the consortium opened free first-year memberships to start-ups and academic institutions. Its members today include a research centre, a review site and makers of writing software alongside the pen companies.

 

Growing up

In 2021 the consortium marked its first five years with a session at Connected Ink and gave itself a new website and identity. In 2022 members took to the stage again when Connected Ink became a series of events in several cities, and the Digital Pen Usage Study asked how digital pens fit into everyday life. New members kept arriving: Expresii and eWritable in 2023, SUKI and Chartoularios in 2024, PILOT in 2025.

 

Pens became standard equipment

When the consortium began, writing on a screen was still something of a speciality. Ten years later it is standard equipment.

In March 2018 Apple brought pen support to its basic iPad. When schools and offices moved home in 2020, tablets returned to growth: the market researcher IDC counted 164 million shipped worldwide that year, up almost 14 per cent, driven by education and home use. In February 2022 Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra became the first Galaxy S phone with a pen built in, carrying the idea of the Note into Samsung’s main line.

Some pens also became simpler. Samsung’s S Pen once carried a battery to support remote-control gestures. With the Galaxy S25 Ultra, Samsung dropped those features, and the current pen needs no charging.

 

Screens that look like paper

For anyone who writes by hand, the biggest change came from the screen. E-paper notebooks, which reflect light like a page instead of shining, have grown into a category of their own, with makers such as Supernote building devices for writing first and reading second. Amazon launched the Kindle Scribe, its first Kindle for writing, in September 2022. In September 2024 the reMarkable Paper Pro became the first such notebook with E Ink’s colour Gallery 3 display.

Writers now have a real choice of pens as well. Many e-paper notebooks work with pens that never need charging and move easily from one brand to another, while some makers have chosen pens with batteries, whose nibs last longer. eWritable, a review site and member, follows these developments closely for its readers.

 

Software that reads handwriting

Software learned to read what we write. In 2020 Apple’s Scribble began turning handwriting into typed text in any text field. In 2024 its Smart Script started tidying handwriting while keeping the writer’s own style, and some recognition software can now read several languages on a single page.

 

Evidence instead of opinion

Alongside the products, the evidence has grown. The consortium has gathered the research on why writing by hand matters: a scientific knowledge base of 158 sources, compiled in 2023, and studies of how people actually use digital pens, most recently in 2025.

 

The next ten years

The idea from 2016 has only grown more relevant. Pens already write across brands, e-paper has learned colour, and software can read handwriting in several languages on one page. Every new device that invites people to pick up a pen strengthens the case for handwriting that travels.

That is what the next ten years are for: bringing pen makers, screen makers, software developers and researchers even closer together, so that writing by hand works wherever people need it.

Here is to the next decade of digital ink with a huge thank you to all of our members who have made this possible!