A method and system for recognizing a graphic object's shape, line style, and fill pattern in a pen environment are provided. In a preferred embodiment, a user draws a graphic object on an electronic tablet of a computer system. The graphic object comprises a shape attribute, a line style attribute, and a fill pattern attribute. A Recognizer, recognizes the graphic object. The graphic object is made up of a plurality of data points, each data point having an x-coordinate and a y-coordinate. The Recognizer subdivides the plurality of data points into one or more strokes, each stroke representative of a path travelled by the handwriting instrument after the handwriting instrument touches the tablet and before the handwriting instrument is lifted off of the tablet. For each data point in each stroke, the recognizer maps the data point to a normalized data point, then transforms the normalized data point into a transformed data point, and then determines whether the transformed data point is a shape-defining data point or an interior-defining data point. Shape-defining data points are representative of the shape attribute and the line style attribute, while the interior-defining data points are representative of the fill pattern attribute. Based on the coordinates of the transformed data points and the coordinates of the data points, the recognizer determines the attributes. After determining the attributes of the graphic object, the recognizer selects a representation of the graphic object that corresponds to the determined attributes and displays the representation on the electronic tablet.