Turn a photo into a spreadsheet.
A table trapped in a photo can become data you can sort, check, and work with.
Try it now
Copy the prompt into your AI tool of choice, then answer its questions as they come.
Paste it into any AI chat to start. For most people, this is all you need.
Everything on this page in one paste: the prompt plus the full plan, every step and what to check. Use it for longer moves, to plan ahead, to share with a colleague, or if your AI can't open links.
How it goes
What the AI will do
- Extract the photographed table into an editable spreadsheet and check it against the image.
What to have ready
- One or more photos; related files or correspondence can help explain headings, units, or intended use.
Where you come in
- Resolve uncertain readings and choose a layout when the intended analysis calls for a different structure.
What you'll get
You have an editable spreadsheet checked against the photo, with headings and units explained and unresolved readings identified.
You're done when
You have an editable spreadsheet checked against the photo, with headings and units explained and unresolved readings identified.
These are general instructions, not a description of this user's particular AI system, tools, access, or circumstances. Adapt the method to the user's goal and the capabilities you can actually use, while preserving the activity's essential sequence, review points, and intended result. ### Start with the activity and the user's context Read the complete activity and guide the user through it. Use the activity prompt yourself; the user does not need to paste it again. Keep the responsibilities of the user, the AI, and any colleague clear. Begin with what the user has already supplied. Establish the intended result and resolve missing context through focused questions when needed. Work within the activity's stated scope, permissions, required confirmations, and stopping points, including any deliberate order for introducing information. Make progress with the available information and reasonable, clearly identified assumptions where the activity allows them. ### Check the capabilities needed for this work Inspect relevant available tools, connectors, and data. Use small, relevant, non-destructive checks to establish whether necessary access or a capability actually works. Naming a product does not establish access to it. Let this activity determine what needs checking; do not impose a universal preliminary questionnaire or a full system audit. When useful access is missing: - Explain what you cannot reach and how that material would help. - Investigate practical setup, connection, export, or other access alternatives before asking the user to gather material or troubleshoot. - If progress depends on access, request only the specific user action or permission needed to enable it or provide the material another way. Continue useful independent work while awaiting the response. - Offer to walk the user through an export or upload. Welcome files, links, copied text, rough notes, or an interview as supported by your system and the activity, and use the best available route. If the missing access is optional, continue with what is available. ### Ask focused questions and respect the answers Ask questions only when necessary to complete the work well or satisfy the activity's required review points. Build on answers already supplied. Ask one question at a time, or a small group of closely related questions. Wait on work that depends on the answer, and continue useful work that does not. Explain unfamiliar language with examples where helpful. Confirm answers or decisions you supply on the user's behalf before treating them as the user's final answers or decisions. This does not require separate approval of every sourced finding; follow the activity's specific review requirements. ### Keep evidence and independent contributions distinct Distinguish evidence, inference, and missing information. Check your work against the source material. Use independent agents when your system actually supports delegation and independent investigation or review would improve the work: - Give each agent a bounded brief and the context appropriate to its role. - Keep discovery independent until synthesis where the activity requires it. Preserve any requirement for the user or colleagues to contribute before seeing other explanations. - Follow the activity's stated fallback and any required confirmation when independent agents or fresh contexts are unavailable. Preserve reviewer isolation where required; describe shared-context or sequential passes accurately. ### Produce, check, and revise the result Do the substantive investigation and production. Carry the activity through to the most complete, usable result within its scope, rather than ending with a plan or handing the main work back to the user. When missing information does not prevent useful work, proceed with clearly identified assumptions where the activity permits them. Check the result against the activity's completion criteria. At each substantive delivery, state what is complete and any material unfinished work, assumptions, helpful missing information, and remaining uncertainty. Explain how these affect what the user can use, and help the user revise the result. Preserve the activity's stopping point. Do not turn a rehearsal, investigation, or test-design activity into execution that the user has not authorized. Turn the table in this photograph into an editable spreadsheet I can use. ### 1. Read the table and understand its use. Inspect the image, including headings, footnotes, units, merged cells, row labels, and totals. Check for cropped portions, glare, or multiple overlapping images. Try available image-reading and spreadsheet capabilities; if the source is inaccessible, help me supply a usable image or another representation. Ask for a clearer crop only where it would resolve an important uncertainty. Use related available email, messages, meeting transcripts, documents, and project files when they can explain abbreviations, units, reporting periods, or what the table is for. Do not replace a photographed figure with a newer contextual value without clearly distinguishing that change. Establish the intended use from what I provided. Ask a focused question if layout or interpretation depends on it. When useful, show two concrete approaches: a close reproduction of the table or a tidy analysis sheet with one observation per row. Explain the difference and wait for a consequential choice; retaining a faithful transcription alongside an analysis sheet is also possible if useful. ### 2. Extract and structure the data. Transcribe every relevant row and column, retaining the source’s labels and units. Preserve leading zeros in identifiers, negative signs, decimal and thousands separators, dates, percentages, and currency. Distinguish blank, zero, not applicable, and illegible values. Do not guess an uncertain digit or infer a missing value from a total as if it were read from the photo. Mark uncertain cells in a separate notes field or sheet and ask me to resolve those that would change the result. Keep explanatory text separate from numeric cells so the data remains usable. When splitting merged headers or restructuring the table, retain a trace from the resulting columns to the source. Treat calculated totals as checks; keep source totals distinguishable from any formulas you add. ### 3. Build, verify, and deliver. - Create the workbook with appropriate cell types, clear headers, readable widths, and useful filtering or frozen headings where supported. - Check all transcribed values and labels against the image. - Compare row and column counts, check totals where their meaning permits, and investigate discrepancies rather than forcing the numbers to balance. Open or parse the resulting file using available tools to verify its sheets, values, and formatting. If workbook creation is unavailable, provide a usable CSV or tab-separated alternative, explaining any formatting it cannot retain. Deliver the file, a short account of its layout, and specific unresolved readings. The finished result is a usable transcription, not merely instructions for me to make a spreadsheet. These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.
View full AI instructions
Turn a photo into a spreadsheet.
What the AI will do
- Extract the photographed table into an editable spreadsheet and check it against the image.
What you can provide
- One or more photos; related files or correspondence can help explain headings, units, or intended use.
Where you'll take part
- Resolve uncertain readings and choose a layout when the intended analysis calls for a different structure.
What you'll get
You have an editable spreadsheet checked against the photo, with headings and units explained and unresolved readings identified.
Activity context
A table trapped in a photo can become data you can sort, check, and work with.
For the user
Share the photo and, if you know it, what you want to do with the numbers. The AI can consult related files to interpret the table. You’ll clarify any uncertain values or units and choose a useful layout if more than one makes sense.
Guidance for the AI
These are general instructions, not a description of this user's particular AI system, tools, access, or circumstances. Adapt the method to the user's goal and the capabilities you can actually use, while preserving the activity's essential sequence, review points, and intended result.
Start with the activity and the user's context
Read the complete activity and guide the user through it. Use the activity prompt yourself; the user does not need to paste it again. Keep the responsibilities of the user, the AI, and any colleague clear.
Begin with what the user has already supplied. Establish the intended result and resolve missing context through focused questions when needed. Work within the activity's stated scope, permissions, required confirmations, and stopping points, including any deliberate order for introducing information. Make progress with the available information and reasonable, clearly identified assumptions where the activity allows them.
Check the capabilities needed for this work
Inspect relevant available tools, connectors, and data. Use small, relevant, non-destructive checks to establish whether necessary access or a capability actually works. Naming a product does not establish access to it. Let this activity determine what needs checking; do not impose a universal preliminary questionnaire or a full system audit.
When useful access is missing:
- Explain what you cannot reach and how that material would help.
- Investigate practical setup, connection, export, or other access alternatives before asking the user to gather material or troubleshoot.
- If progress depends on access, request only the specific user action or permission needed to enable it or provide the material another way. Continue useful independent work while awaiting the response.
- Offer to walk the user through an export or upload. Welcome files, links, copied text, rough notes, or an interview as supported by your system and the activity, and use the best available route. If the missing access is optional, continue with what is available.
Ask focused questions and respect the answers
Ask questions only when necessary to complete the work well or satisfy the activity's required review points. Build on answers already supplied. Ask one question at a time, or a small group of closely related questions. Wait on work that depends on the answer, and continue useful work that does not. Explain unfamiliar language with examples where helpful.
Confirm answers or decisions you supply on the user's behalf before treating them as the user's final answers or decisions. This does not require separate approval of every sourced finding; follow the activity's specific review requirements.
Keep evidence and independent contributions distinct
Distinguish evidence, inference, and missing information. Check your work against the source material.
Use independent agents when your system actually supports delegation and independent investigation or review would improve the work:
- Give each agent a bounded brief and the context appropriate to its role.
- Keep discovery independent until synthesis where the activity requires it. Preserve any requirement for the user or colleagues to contribute before seeing other explanations.
- Follow the activity's stated fallback and any required confirmation when independent agents or fresh contexts are unavailable. Preserve reviewer isolation where required; describe shared-context or sequential passes accurately.
Produce, check, and revise the result
Do the substantive investigation and production. Carry the activity through to the most complete, usable result within its scope, rather than ending with a plan or handing the main work back to the user. When missing information does not prevent useful work, proceed with clearly identified assumptions where the activity permits them.
Check the result against the activity's completion criteria. At each substantive delivery, state what is complete and any material unfinished work, assumptions, helpful missing information, and remaining uncertainty. Explain how these affect what the user can use, and help the user revise the result.
Preserve the activity's stopping point. Do not turn a rehearsal, investigation, or test-design activity into execution that the user has not authorized.
Your AI prompt
Turn the table in this photograph into an editable spreadsheet I can use.
1. Read the table and understand its use.
Inspect the image, including headings, footnotes, units, merged cells, row labels, and totals. Check for cropped portions, glare, or multiple overlapping images. Try available image-reading and spreadsheet capabilities; if the source is inaccessible, help me supply a usable image or another representation. Ask for a clearer crop only where it would resolve an important uncertainty.
Use related available email, messages, meeting transcripts, documents, and project files when they can explain abbreviations, units, reporting periods, or what the table is for. Do not replace a photographed figure with a newer contextual value without clearly distinguishing that change.
Establish the intended use from what I provided. Ask a focused question if layout or interpretation depends on it. When useful, show two concrete approaches: a close reproduction of the table or a tidy analysis sheet with one observation per row. Explain the difference and wait for a consequential choice; retaining a faithful transcription alongside an analysis sheet is also possible if useful.
2. Extract and structure the data.
Transcribe every relevant row and column, retaining the source’s labels and units. Preserve leading zeros in identifiers, negative signs, decimal and thousands separators, dates, percentages, and currency. Distinguish blank, zero, not applicable, and illegible values. Do not guess an uncertain digit or infer a missing value from a total as if it were read from the photo.
Mark uncertain cells in a separate notes field or sheet and ask me to resolve those that would change the result. Keep explanatory text separate from numeric cells so the data remains usable. When splitting merged headers or restructuring the table, retain a trace from the resulting columns to the source. Treat calculated totals as checks; keep source totals distinguishable from any formulas you add.
3. Build, verify, and deliver.
- Create the workbook with appropriate cell types, clear headers, readable widths, and useful filtering or frozen headings where supported.
- Check all transcribed values and labels against the image.
- Compare row and column counts, check totals where their meaning permits, and investigate discrepancies rather than forcing the numbers to balance.
Open or parse the resulting file using available tools to verify its sheets, values, and formatting. If workbook creation is unavailable, provide a usable CSV or tab-separated alternative, explaining any formatting it cannot retain. Deliver the file, a short account of its layout, and specific unresolved readings. The finished result is a usable transcription, not merely instructions for me to make a spreadsheet.
Done when
You have an editable spreadsheet checked against the photo, with headings and units explained and unresolved readings identified.
These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.
These instructions were written in September 2026 using the frontier models available at the time. You may now have better tools or models, or restrictions that make some tasks harder. Your AI should adapt to the tools and access you actually have and find the best available way to help. Everything here is a starting suggestion for you and your AI, not a proven best practice for every setup. Feel free to rewrite any of it to better meet your needs.