Method for operating an input device for an electronic apparatus in a motor vehicle, wherein the input device comprises a display device, an input surface and either a controller or a group comprising a plurality of controllers, wherein at least one database (18, 20, 22), an evaluation device, a handwriting recognition device and a search device are provided by the controller or the group of controllers, and wherein: - a sensing device (14, 30) formed by the input surface and the evaluation device senses a character trace from a user while said user draws the character trace in order to input a character or a group of characters on the input surface of the sensing device (14, 30), - the handwriting recognition device performs character recognition for the character trace sensed by the sensing device, wherein the handwriting recognition device determines a plurality of different recognition results for the character trace, and - the result of the character recognition is displayed by the display device, characterised in that - the at least one database (18, 20, 22) comprises a navigation database and/or a music database and/or an address/telephone number database and - the search device uses a database search in the at least one database (18, 20, 22) to search for at least one database entry for each of the different recognition results, which satisfies a match criterion for the recognition result, and - the display device displays a hits list formed on the basis of the different recognition results as the result of the recognition, wherein the hits list is formed from database entries that are found, and following the performance of the character recognition, the character trace is also displayed together with the display produced for the result of the recognition, so that it becomes clear to the user which of the input characters the handwriting recognition section had difficulties with to the effect that the character trace is ambiguous and therefore a plurality of different recognition results are possible. - a sensing device (14, 30) formed by the input surface and the evaluation device senses a character trace from a user while said user draws the character trace in order to input a character or a group of characters on the input surface of the sensing device (14, 30), - the handwriting recognition device performs character recognition for the character trace sensed by the sensing device, wherein the handwriting recognition device determines a plurality of different recognition results for the character trace, and - the result of the character recognition is displayed by the display device, - the at least one database (18, 20, 22) comprises a navigation database and/or a music database and/or an address/telephone number database and - the search device uses a database search in the at least one database (18, 20, 22) to search for at least one database entry for each of the different recognition results, which satisfies a match criterion for the recognition result, and - the display device displays a hits list formed on the basis of the different recognition results as the result of the recognition, wherein the hits list is formed from database entries that are found, and following the performance of the character recognition, the character trace is also displayed together with the display produced for the result of the recognition, so that it becomes clear to the user which of the input characters the handwriting recognition section had difficulties with to the effect that the character trace is ambiguous and therefore a plurality of different recognition results are possible.