Turn a photo into an editable document.
Free a document from its photograph so you can edit it, reuse it, and stop retyping it.
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
- Recreate the photographed document as editable text with its useful structure preserved.
What to have ready
- Photos of the document; additional pages or related files if they help resolve an unclear passage.
Where you come in
- Clarify uncertain readings and choose between a close layout match and a simpler editable version when useful.
What you'll get
You have an editable version checked against the photographed document, with uncertain passages and any proposed corrections clearly separated.
You're done when
You have an editable version checked against the photographed document, with uncertain passages and any proposed corrections clearly separated.
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. Recreate this photographed document as an editable document, preserving its content and useful structure. ### 1. Inspect the source and choose a useful format. Read all supplied images and determine page order, headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, footnotes, and important layout relationships. Identify missing edges, overlap, unreadable text, or absent pages. Check available image-reading and document-creation capabilities and help me share a supported source if needed. Use relevant connected documents, project files, email, messages, or meeting records to interpret names, abbreviations, and terminology where appropriate. A related document can support a proposed reading, but does not establish what the photograph says. Ask about uncertainty that affects meaning. Infer the likely use from my request. If the choice matters, offer a close layout match or a simpler document optimized for editing. Explain what each preserves and recommend a suitable format. Wait for a consequential choice; otherwise use a reasonable editable format supported here. ### 2. Reconstruct the document. Transcribe the text faithfully and use actual editable paragraphs, heading styles, lists, and tables rather than embedding the entire page as an image. Preserve names, amounts, dates, punctuation that affects meaning, and references between sections. Retain relevant images or marks as images when they cannot sensibly become editable text, identifying that limitation. Mark unreadable passages clearly and collect focused questions that could resolve them. Do not silently correct substantive wording, fill missing sentences, or copy a cleaner but different version from another source. If you notice an apparent error, preserve the transcription and offer the correction separately. Remove camera artifacts and unnecessary line wraps without changing content. ### 3. Compare and deliver. - Check the recreated document against the images page by page. - Verify paragraph order, table values, headings, footnotes, and omitted or duplicated material. - Open or render the output where supported to check that it is readable and genuinely editable, with no lost text or broken tables. Incorporate any clarifications I supply and recheck the affected passages. Deliver the editable file and a concise list of unresolved readings or layout limitations. If the preferred format is unavailable, provide the best supported editable alternative and explain the remaining conversion step. Keep a faithful transcription distinct from any optional edited version. 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 an editable document.
What the AI will do
- Recreate the photographed document as editable text with its useful structure preserved.
What you can provide
- Photos of the document; additional pages or related files if they help resolve an unclear passage.
Where you'll take part
- Clarify uncertain readings and choose between a close layout match and a simpler editable version when useful.
What you'll get
You have an editable version checked against the photographed document, with uncertain passages and any proposed corrections clearly separated.
Activity context
Free a document from its photograph so you can edit it, reuse it, and stop retyping it.
For the user
Share the photo or set of pages. The AI can consult related documents to interpret names and terminology. You’ll clarify uncertain text and choose how closely the editable version should reproduce the original layout.
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
Recreate this photographed document as an editable document, preserving its content and useful structure.
1. Inspect the source and choose a useful format.
Read all supplied images and determine page order, headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, footnotes, and important layout relationships. Identify missing edges, overlap, unreadable text, or absent pages. Check available image-reading and document-creation capabilities and help me share a supported source if needed.
Use relevant connected documents, project files, email, messages, or meeting records to interpret names, abbreviations, and terminology where appropriate. A related document can support a proposed reading, but does not establish what the photograph says. Ask about uncertainty that affects meaning.
Infer the likely use from my request. If the choice matters, offer a close layout match or a simpler document optimized for editing. Explain what each preserves and recommend a suitable format. Wait for a consequential choice; otherwise use a reasonable editable format supported here.
2. Reconstruct the document.
Transcribe the text faithfully and use actual editable paragraphs, heading styles, lists, and tables rather than embedding the entire page as an image. Preserve names, amounts, dates, punctuation that affects meaning, and references between sections. Retain relevant images or marks as images when they cannot sensibly become editable text, identifying that limitation.
Mark unreadable passages clearly and collect focused questions that could resolve them. Do not silently correct substantive wording, fill missing sentences, or copy a cleaner but different version from another source. If you notice an apparent error, preserve the transcription and offer the correction separately. Remove camera artifacts and unnecessary line wraps without changing content.
3. Compare and deliver.
- Check the recreated document against the images page by page.
- Verify paragraph order, table values, headings, footnotes, and omitted or duplicated material.
- Open or render the output where supported to check that it is readable and genuinely editable, with no lost text or broken tables.
Incorporate any clarifications I supply and recheck the affected passages. Deliver the editable file and a concise list of unresolved readings or layout limitations. If the preferred format is unavailable, provide the best supported editable alternative and explain the remaining conversion step. Keep a faithful transcription distinct from any optional edited version.
Done when
You have an editable version checked against the photographed document, with uncertain passages and any proposed corrections clearly separated.
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.