Guide
Transcribing family letters from photos and scans
A good transcription starts before anyone reads a word. How you photograph, order and name the pages decides how much of the letter survives into text, and whether someone can check your work later.
Photographing a letter
- Soft, even light. Daylight from a window, no flash, no shadow from your phone or hand.
- Flat paper. Hold folds down at the edges with clean weights, never by pressing on the writing.
- Square on. Keep the phone parallel to the page so lines don’t taper.
- Whole page, little background. Include every edge: dates and page numbers often sit in corners.
- Every side. Backs, margins written sideways, and the envelope.
Getting the page order right
Folded letter sheets were often written in an order that is not obvious: page one, then the inside spread, then the back, with a postscript squeezed sideways into a margin. Before transcribing, number the sides in pencil on your own notes (never on the letter) and photograph them in that order. If you are unsure, follow the sentences: the last words on one side should run into the first words of the next.
In Heirloom you can drag pages into order, or use the move buttons, on the review step before reading starts.
| On the page | In the transcription |
|---|---|
| A word you can’t make out | [illegible] |
| A word you think you can read | Uncle [Amos?] |
| A torn or missing corner | [torn] |
| A new side of paper | A blank line and, in your notes, the side number |
| The writer’s spelling and symbols | Kept exactly: “Tuesday & I was” |
Faithful first, readable second
Keep two texts. The faithful transcription preserves the writer’s spelling, capitals, ampersands and abbreviations. The modern version is for reading aloud at the kitchen table. Heirloom produces both, side by side, and you can correct either one.
Keeping the result
Save the transcription with the images it came from, and record where the original letter lives. Plain text and printed copies age well; proprietary formats don’t. In Heirloom each letter can be downloaded as a text file or printed, and stays in your private library until you delete it.
Stuck on particular letter shapes? See reading old cursive.
Limits worth knowing
Heirloom reads up to five pages per reading in its current beta; it is built for family letters, not for bulk archives or registers. Readings are produced by an AI model and can contain mistakes, so check names, dates and numbers against the original page shown beside the text.
Questions
- Is a phone photo good enough, or do I need a scanner?
- A recent phone camera in daylight is good enough for most letters. A flatbed scanner helps with very faint pencil, tiny writing and creased pages that will not lie flat for a photo.
- What resolution should I use when scanning?
- Around 300–400 dpi in colour is a sensible default for letters. Colour matters: faded brown ink separates from the paper far better in colour than in black and white.
- How many pages can Heirloom read at once?
- In the current beta, one reading covers up to five pages, and each photo or file can be up to 10 MB. Longer letters can be read in parts and kept together in your library.
- Which file types work?
- JPEG, PNG, WebP and HEIC photos, and PDF scans. PDF pages are counted after upload, so the review step shows the exact number of pages before anything is read.