Handwritten court forms, exhibits, or correspondence can be hard to read. Either the penmanship is unclear (which can lead to interpretation and case-handling errors) or the recipient can’t read cursive. Signature moves: are we losing the ability to write by hand?
Lucky for us, many AI tools can now look at a handwritten page and transcribe it to text. The accuracy varies, however. Think of it like sharing a page with coworkers and asking them for their take on what a word or phrase is. Their good-faith responses may differ.
Transcribing with AI
To test the tools, I extracted three handwritten pages from a criminal application for leave to appeal filed with the Michigan Supreme Court in February 2024. The PDF scan was of poor quality.
Next, I converted the .PDF pages to image files. I used .JPG but other image formats will likely work.
I tested ChatGPT 5 (thinking), Claude Sonnet 4 (free), Gemini 2.5 (free), and Perplexity Pro (research), by uploading the page-by-page images and used this prompt:
Transcribe the attached to text, word for word. If you are uncertain what a word or phrase might be, replace the word or phrase with “[unable to transcribe]”.
N.b., NotebookLM wasn’t tested because it doesn’t accept image uploads (at least as of now).
Claude did not understand the assignment and did not apply the “[unable to transcribe]” instruction. Claude response
ChatGPT 5, Gemini 2.5, and Perplexity Pro performed very well—with some differences.
Here’s a comparison of the output differences among the four models tested.
Takeaways:
- Tell the model to mark any uncertain words or phrases (e.g., ‘[unable to transcribe]’). Otherwise, it may guess without flagging uncertainty.
- For now, Claude isn’t reliable for handwriting-to-text transcription.
- A human review is still necessary. Treat the AI output as a tool, not a certification. At best, it will confirm the easy text and show you where to focus further review.
Handwriting-to-text AI won’t replace judgment, but it can shorten the distance between a fuzzy page and something you can actually use. With clear instructions and human review, AI tools can turn guesswork into a focused checklist—identifying what’s clear and what needs follow-up.