Why Convert Handwritten Notes?

Instructors often create handwritten notes during the course of lectures and then provide them to students as an extra resource. These notes can be really helpful to students, but handwritten notes on their own are not accessible to students who use screen reading technology, because screen readers rely on coded characters rather than reading things visually.

Manually converting handwritten notes can be arduous and, in the case of notes with mathematical or scientific notation, quite difficult. Fortunately, in the age of AI, there are more than a few options that require significantly less time and effort.

Resources for Converting Handwritten Notes

Below are some options that can help you transcribe handwritten notes into accessible text. Many of these platforms specialize in handwriting recognition for different fields and should do a very good job, but keep in mind that the outputs will still need to be spot checked for accuracy. With most of these tools, it is better to use images than PDFs.

Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT

General use AI are actually often quite good at interpreting and transcribing handwritten text and even mathematical and scientific notation, however it's a good idea to be mindful of the length of the document you are asking the AI to transcribe. Several pages or images won't be a problem, but if your document has too many pages, it will stretch the AI's attention mechanism and cause it to confabulate.

Note that WOU has access to Gemini through our partnership with Google.

Example Prompts:

"Transcribe the handwriting in this image exactly. If there are words that are illegible, put them in brackets like [this] so I can check them. Do not change my wording."

"Transcribe the handwritten notes from this image. For any mathematical equations, output them in standard text and provide the raw LaTeX code so I can paste it into the Canvas math editor."

Specifically for Mathematical & Scientific Notation

Equatio - write directly into the app and Equatio’s AI handwriting recognition will digitize it instantly. Also has speech-to-math.

Mathpix Snip - trained exclusively on mathematical and scientific documents. Upload a screenshot or mobile photo of a whiteboard or handwritten notes and it will convert it to LaTeX, Markdown, or MathML.

See an example of handwritten mathematical functions transcribed via Mathpix Snip and Gemini.

NotebookLM

NotebookLM possesses powerful visual processing and OCR engines. You can upload poorly scanned PDFs, old textbook pages, or images of whiteboard notes from a lecture, and the tool will instantly extract the text, interpret the formatting, and make the un-searchable document fully interactive. This drastically reduces preparation time for educators who need to digitize legacy teaching materials.

Mobile Options

If you want to convert notes taken on a whiteboard into an accessible resource for students, there are many phone apps that will capture the text through your phone's camera and turn it into text that can be pasted into Canvas or documents.

- - Google Docs - Snap a picture, upload it to your Google Drive, right-click or tap the three dots, and select "Open with Google Docs" to convert the image into an editable text document.
  - Google Keep - snap a picture of handwritten notes, upload it to a Google Keep note, click the three dots, and select “Grab image text.”
  - Google Lens - using the Google app on a phone, point the camera at any piece of handwriting, highlight the text, and copy it.
  - Live Text (iPhone & iPad) - Snap a picture of notes on a board and then open it in your Photos app. Tap the small Live Text icon (it looks like a tiny square with lines of text) in the bottom right corner, and you can instantly highlight, copy, or translate the text.
  - Samsung Galaxy - Open a photo in your Gallery and look for the yellow 'T' (Text) icon in the bottom right corner. Tap it, and your phone will instantly highlight every word so you can copy it to your clipboard.