Old letter photo to text on iPhone
You do not need a desktop scanner to read historical family handwriting. Take a photo of an old letter with your iPhone camera in natural light. FamilyLore transcribes the old handwriting line by line, translates it into English, and marks every word it was unsure of.
Your first three pages need no account and no card.
A letter from our shelf, as FamilyLore read it
A dotted underline marks a word FamilyLore was unsure of; [?] is its own note on a doubtful reading.
Karl and Käthe Kollwitz to their son Peter · 17 Oct 1914
- 121
- Feldpostbrief
- Zurück tot [?]
- [Stempel: BERLIN NO / 17 [?].10.14. 10-11 V / * 55 k] [Randvermerk: Aufgabestempel [?]]
- An den Kriegsfreiwilligen
- Peter Kollwitz
- 22. Reserve [gestrichen] Armeekorps | 4. Kompagnie
Also on the shelf: Leo Meter’s Easter letter of 1943, in Sütterlin · Johann Kilian’s letter from Texas, 1858, in Kurrent
How well it reads, measured
| Script | Pages | Characters read correctly | Names, dates and numbers right | Misread words it marked | Last run |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kurrent and Sütterlin15 pages · 3 Nov 2026 | 15 | 83%Characters read correctly | 75%Names, dates and numbers right | 85%Misread words it marked | 3 Nov 2026 |
| Russian and Ukrainian7 pages · 3 Nov 2026 | 7 | 86%Characters read correctly | 69%Names, dates and numbers right | 80%Misread words it marked | 3 Nov 2026 |
Measured on letters whose holders published a transcription made by hand, read the same way your page is. The figures rest on a few pages so far and move as pages are added. How well FamilyLore reads
Questions
- Can’t ChatGPT do this?
- A general chatbot can read some old handwriting from photos, sometimes well, but it usually hands you clean text with no sign of which words it guessed, and its makers publish no figures for this script; FamilyLore marks the words it is unsure of and publishes how often it reads correctly, in the table above.
- How should I photograph an old letter with my iPhone?
- Lay the page flat on a table near indirect daylight. Hold your phone parallel to the page without using flash, and make sure all four corners and margins are visible in the frame.
- What if it reads a word wrong?
- Tap a word to see the other readings FamilyLore weighed, and correct it if you know better. The translation is redone from your correction. Most misread words carry a mark, but not every one, so a name or a date that matters is worth checking against the photo.
- Who sees my pages?
- Only you. A page becomes public only if you share it, and then only to people who have the link. Deleting your account deletes the photos you uploaded.
What FamilyLore doesn’t read well yet
- Photos taken at steep angles or with heavy shadows across the text. Flat, well-lit photos produce the cleanest readings.
- Two-page openings photographed together in a single shot. Photograph each page separately for accurate lineation.
- Faded pencil or ink. The benchmark currently measures faded handwriting on only a few pages.
From photo to text in three steps
Take a photo of the page
Lay the sheet flat, in daylight and without flash. A phone photo of the whole page is enough.
Upload it
“German (Kurrent)” is already chosen. If you know roughly when it was written, pick the era.
Read it
You get the page as it was written, in modern spelling, and in English. Correct a word you know better yourself.
Rather read it yourself?