An approach is provided for associating touch-screen handwriting to application components. Prior to changing focus to a second user interface, a set of handwriting inputs are received at the touch-screen of a device. The received handwriting inputs are associated with an input area of the first user interface that appears on the touch-screen with the first user interface having the system focus while the handwriting inputs were received. Subsequently, when the user changes the focus from the second user interface back to the first user interface, the first set of handwriting inputs are retrieved and converted to a text format and inputted to the input area of the first user interface.