Here’s an Incredibly Slick and Surprisingly Affordable Way to Convert Paper Drawings Into Digital Files

One day , the idea of piddle marks on sheets of flatten tree guts to share estimate with others will be laughable . But for now , the experience of writing or drawing on a piece of paper still feels more lifelike than it does on a glass or credit card tablet . Moleskine ’s Modern Adobe Creative Cloud relate Paper Tabletstrives to be a nosepiece between the two , letting you sketch on theme and then like a shot redact and control a digital version of your work in Adobe Illustrator . It forge unusually well , as long as you ’re not ask the same experience that $ 1,000 ironware offers .

A stylus has always been the most natural room for artistic eccentric to interact with a computing machine , which is why Apple finally caved and stick in its Pencil accessory for the iPad , and whyWacom ’s draftsmanship tabletsare a standard tool in originative manufacture . Both follow very nigh to utterly replicate the experience of drawing with a real pen or pencil — meantime is most non - existent now — but using a plastic - tip off stylus on a liquid glass screen door or textured plastic display can still sense a little artificial .

As features go , the Moleskine Adobe Creative Cloud connected Paper Tablet , which I will henceforth refer to as the Paper Tablet , ca n’t compete with products like the iPad or a Wacom . It ’s really nothing more than a streamlined room for artists and house decorator to sketch out rough musical theme on a metier they ’re more well-heeled with , and then easily transition to Adobe Illustrator to refine and polish their work . But it does that surprisingly well using technology I had written off years ago .

Photo: Andrew Liszewski (Gizmodo)

The Paper Tablet bank on theMoleskine Pen+ Ellipsewhich is a smart pen that practice a built - in tv camera to cover a nigh - invisible unequalled grid pattern printed on every varlet of the notebook computer . The last time I adjudicate the technology was withproducts from Livescribe a few eld ago , and I was turned off by the chunky sizing of the pen , but the up-to-the-minute iteration of Moleskine ’s computer hardware ( which uses the same tech as theNeo smartpen ) feels as good as the Apple Pencil or a Wacom Stylus .

Instead of connecting the smart pen to a mobile machine , Moleskine ’s unexampled Paper Tablet allows you to connect it directly to a computer using an Adobe Illustratorextension . apparatus is easy enough , and as soon as you start drawing on a fresh page of the notebook computer , Illustrator will create a new document for it , and will even mechanically open and switch between existing documents as you go back to work on former pages in the Paper Tablet .

Seeing a sketch you ’re piss in the notebook almost instantly appear in Adobe Illustrator is dandy , but it ’s not a real - time translation of your workplace . In fact , you ’ll only see a stroke you ’ve made once you ’ve cabbage the Pen+ Ellipse off the pageboy . So while quick short strokes will pop up in Illustrator almost directly , a prospicient uninterrupted stroke ( like writing out your name , for example ) wo n’t come along until you ’ve finished . In comparing , when using the Pen+ Ellipse on a Moleskine+ notebook computer and the M+ Notes wandering app , the strokes seem as you suck them , so I ’m not sure why there ’s the extra lag here aside from Illustrator needing to do a quick conversion each time .

Photo: Andrew Liszewski

You’ll need to reconnect the Moleskine Pen+ Ellipse every time you re-open Adobe Illustrator.Photo: Andrew Liszewski (Gizmodo)

The Paper Tablet ’s functionality is circumscribed , but what it does do ; it does well . Strokes and figures are accurately translate into route in Illustrator , and sometimes almost too accurately , now and then requiring a turn of cleanup position to take away pocket-sized check mark brand where the pen was uprise off the page . It ’s well as accurate as the Apple Pencil or a Wacom style , but it ’s also no replacement for either product as there ’s no way to edit out , erase , or wangle the strokes using the Paper Tablet once they ’re on the Thomas Nelson Page and import into Illustrator .

If you only had to buy the $ 35Adobe originative Cloud connect Paper Tabletto add this functionality to your Adobe Illustrator workflow , I ’d be fain to urge it . Previous collaborations between Moleskine and Adobe need user to snap a picture of a drawing in a notebook computer using a particular app which would convert the simulacrum into editable accident and vectors , but I ’ve never found those conversions to be as accurate as I want them to be . This novel root work much well if your survey are specify for Illustrator .

But in addition to the $ 35 notebook , you also call for the $ 179 Moleskine Pen+ Ellipse to make it all work , and a written matter of Adobe Illustrator at $ 21 / month if you bribe it for a yr — so the cost starts to quickly add up . Unless intake only scratch you when you ’re staring at a blank flat solid of paper , you might be well off going with one ofWacom ’s garish Intuos $ 80 drawing tabletsinstead if you ’re looking for the most low-cost solution .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.