Using LLMs to transcribe handwritten notes

2026-01-15

Paper is excellent for notetaking. You can write down ideas, make an outline, record things for later, all in a distraction-free environment.

Digital notetaking, though, also has its perks: immediate full-text search, sync and access from anywhere, while taking zero physical space and requiring near-zero organization upfront for later retrieval.

This means, for me, that physical notes don't often serve any purpose other than the immediate action of writing them down. It's highly unlikely I will look into some notebook from months ago to see what I thought at the time, let alone be able to find anything on a particular topic I have in mind in reasonable time.

I find that LLMs such as Gemini Pro, GPT-5 or Claude can be excellent at transcribing handwritten notes, from photos taken by phone, with great accuracy. This allows you to turn your physical notes into digital notes with no effort at all! You get the best of both worlds.