1. A method of searching a digital ink database, the digital ink database being associated with a predetermined author, the method including the steps of: receiving an ASCII text query entered through a computer keyboard; mapping the ASCII text query to a set of feature vectors using a handwriting model obtained from the author associated with the digital ink database using handwriting recognition results, the mapping step comprising the sub-steps of; performing a search of a lexicon consisting of a table of letter sequences mapped to feature vectors, and determining a sequence of lexicon entries which contain letter sequences that, when combined, produce the text query, the lexicon being part of the handwriting modal, and obtaining a set of feature vectors corresponding to the sequence of lexicon entries; using the set of feature vectors to search the digital ink database; and displaying the results of the search to the user, wherein the handwriting recognition results are obtained by the steps of: sampling handwriting; smoothing the handwriting using a filter; performing slant correction; using a zone estimation algorithm to perform height normalization; using feature extraction to perform segmentation into sub-strokes and generation of feature vectors; using feature reduction of the set of feature vectors; performing vector quantization to cluster the feature vectors and generate code word vectors; and searching a dictionary for the most likely word from the code word vectors.