Photograph a whiteboard and say, “Type this up.”
Keep the thinking on the whiteboard after the room has been cleared. Turn its scribbles, arrows, and clusters into something people can use.
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
- Transcribe the board and preserve its meaningful groupings, arrows, and relationships.
- Use related records to clarify context and offer useful additions separately.
What to have ready
- Photos of the board, even if imperfect; a meeting or project reference if you have one.
Where you come in
- Clarify uncertain writing or relationships and choose how the result should be organized.
What you'll get
You have an editable account of the whiteboard, with its meaningful relationships preserved and uncertain readings or contextual additions clearly identified.
You're done when
You have an editable account of the whiteboard, with its meaningful relationships preserved and uncertain readings or contextual additions clearly 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 these whiteboard photographs into an accurate, useful editable account. ### 1. Inspect the board and its likely use. Examine all available images, accounting for overlap, cropped edges, glare, and different angles. Identify text, lists, sketches, arrows, grouping, emphasis, and any apparent sequence. Check your image-reading capabilities and ask for a closer or additional image only where it would resolve a material gap; offer another usable sharing route if the images are inaccessible. Infer whether the board records a brainstorm, plan, decision, process, or something else. Use visible names, topics, or dates to look for relevant available emails, messages and chats, meeting transcripts, documents, and project files. Search only where context can clarify the board or make its output more useful. Distinguish the board itself from information found elsewhere, particularly later changes. Ask how the result will be used if that affects its organization. When helpful, offer two treatments: a faithful organized transcription or a cleaned-up working document with sourced context. Explain the difference and wait for a choice if it changes the substance of the output. ### 2. Reconstruct the content and relationships. Transcribe the visible material accurately. Preserve useful grouping, arrows and connections in an editable outline, table, or diagram supported by the available tools. An arrow might indicate sequence, cause, or association; ask or mark it as ambiguous if that distinction matters. Use context to propose a reading of an abbreviation or partly legible name, but mark uncertain reconstructions. Do not turn a brainstormed possibility into a commitment or invent an owner or deadline. Where the board and other sources disagree, retain the board’s wording and explain the discrepancy separately. If an enriched version is chosen, add relevant explanations, definitions, or later decisions in clearly labeled sections with source references. Preserve access to a faithful transcription so readers can see what was actually on the board. ### 3. Check and deliver. - Compare the result with each image area by area. - Check names, numbers, relationships, omitted branches, and duplicated content from overlapping photos. - Present the uncertain readings together with enough context for me to answer easily, and incorporate corrections. Deliver the editable document or supported text format, keeping the source image references where useful. If the requested format cannot be created here, offer an available editable alternative and explain the remaining step. Finish with the usable record and any specific unresolved details; do not manufacture a cleaner history than the board supports. 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
Photograph a whiteboard and say, “Type this up.”
What the AI will do
- Transcribe the board and preserve its meaningful groupings, arrows, and relationships.
- Use related records to clarify context and offer useful additions separately.
What you can provide
- Photos of the board, even if imperfect; a meeting or project reference if you have one.
Where you'll take part
- Clarify uncertain writing or relationships and choose how the result should be organized.
What you'll get
You have an editable account of the whiteboard, with its meaningful relationships preserved and uncertain readings or contextual additions clearly identified.
Activity context
Keep the thinking on the whiteboard after the room has been cleared. Turn its scribbles, arrows, and clusters into something people can use.
For the user
Share one or more photos. The AI will infer the likely use and can consult related meeting notes or project material. You’ll clarify unreadable or ambiguous parts and choose a faithful transcription or a more organized working version where useful.
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 these whiteboard photographs into an accurate, useful editable account.
1. Inspect the board and its likely use.
Examine all available images, accounting for overlap, cropped edges, glare, and different angles. Identify text, lists, sketches, arrows, grouping, emphasis, and any apparent sequence. Check your image-reading capabilities and ask for a closer or additional image only where it would resolve a material gap; offer another usable sharing route if the images are inaccessible.
Infer whether the board records a brainstorm, plan, decision, process, or something else. Use visible names, topics, or dates to look for relevant available emails, messages and chats, meeting transcripts, documents, and project files. Search only where context can clarify the board or make its output more useful. Distinguish the board itself from information found elsewhere, particularly later changes.
Ask how the result will be used if that affects its organization. When helpful, offer two treatments: a faithful organized transcription or a cleaned-up working document with sourced context. Explain the difference and wait for a choice if it changes the substance of the output.
2. Reconstruct the content and relationships.
Transcribe the visible material accurately. Preserve useful grouping, arrows and connections in an editable outline, table, or diagram supported by the available tools. An arrow might indicate sequence, cause, or association; ask or mark it as ambiguous if that distinction matters.
Use context to propose a reading of an abbreviation or partly legible name, but mark uncertain reconstructions. Do not turn a brainstormed possibility into a commitment or invent an owner or deadline. Where the board and other sources disagree, retain the board’s wording and explain the discrepancy separately.
If an enriched version is chosen, add relevant explanations, definitions, or later decisions in clearly labeled sections with source references. Preserve access to a faithful transcription so readers can see what was actually on the board.
3. Check and deliver.
- Compare the result with each image area by area.
- Check names, numbers, relationships, omitted branches, and duplicated content from overlapping photos.
- Present the uncertain readings together with enough context for me to answer easily, and incorporate corrections.
Deliver the editable document or supported text format, keeping the source image references where useful. If the requested format cannot be created here, offer an available editable alternative and explain the remaining step. Finish with the usable record and any specific unresolved details; do not manufacture a cleaner history than the board supports.
Done when
You have an editable account of the whiteboard, with its meaningful relationships preserved and uncertain readings or contextual additions clearly 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.