How to Digitize Documents: Old Papers, Notes and Books
CorrectNow Editorial Team · 6 min read
Boxes of old letters, school notebooks, family records and out-of-print books take up space and fade with time. Digitising them protects what is written on them and makes it searchable, shareable and much easier to find.
Digitising is more than taking pictures. A good process turns paper into organised, searchable files that will still make sense to you, or to someone else, years from now. This guide covers each step, from sorting the pile to backing up the results.
Start by sorting and deciding what matters
Before you scan anything, go through the pile. Separate what you want to keep as text, what you want only as images, and what you do not need at all.
Some documents only need a good image: photographs, certificates with stamps and signatures, or drawings. Others are more useful as text: letters, notes, recipes, reports and books you want to search or quote. Making this decision early saves time and storage.
- Group papers by person, year, subject or type.
- Remove staples, paper clips and sticky notes carefully.
- Set aside fragile items to handle separately and gently.
Scan or photograph each page
A flatbed scanner gives the most consistent results for loose sheets. A phone works well too, if you photograph carefully: even light, no shadows, the phone held parallel to the page and the page filling most of the frame.
For bound books, do not force the spine flat; that can crack old bindings. Open the book only as far as it comfortably goes, photograph one page at a time, and accept a little curve near the spine. For faded documents, colour or greyscale scans often preserve faint writing better than pure black and white.
Turn images into text with OCR
Images preserve the look of a page; OCR turns the words into text you can search, copy and edit. Printed pages usually convert well. Typewritten pages work too, though faint or uneven typing causes errors. Neat handwriting often works, but results vary, and older handwriting styles can be hard to read even for people.
CorrectNow's OCR page accepts photos, scans and PDFs, and keeps the text in its original language and script, which is useful for family papers written in more than one language.
Proofread what you plan to keep as text
OCR text is a draft. Read it against the original image, paying particular attention to names, dates, places and numbers, which are often the details you digitised the document for in the first place.
Older documents bring their own traps. Spellings, place names and punctuation may follow older conventions. Decide whether you are making an exact transcription or a modernised reading copy, and be consistent. For an exact record, keep the original spellings even when a spell checker flags them.
Name and organise your files
A clear naming pattern is what makes a digital archive usable. Choose one and stick to it.
- Start file names with a date in year-month-day order so files sort correctly.
- Add a short description: who, what or where.
- Keep each scanned image and its text file with matching names.
- Use folders by person, year or subject, mirroring how you sorted the paper.
- Keep a simple index document listing what is in each folder.
Back up in more than one place
A digital archive stored on one device is only as safe as that device. Keep at least two copies in different places, such as a computer and an external drive, or an external drive and a cloud service. Check now and then that the files still open.
Save text in common formats, such as plain text, Word documents or PDFs, so you can still open it in the future without special software.
Before you share or publish
Old papers can contain private details about living people, such as addresses, medical information or financial records. Think about who will see the files before sharing them widely. If you digitise printed books or articles, check copyright before you share or publish the scans or the text.
Frequently asked questions
What is the easiest way to digitize documents at home?
Photograph or scan each page in good light, run OCR on pages you want as text, proofread the result and save both the image and the text with clear file names.
Should I keep the paper originals after digitising?
For important documents, such as certificates, deeds and legal papers, keep the originals. Digital copies are useful for access and backup, but they may not replace the original for official purposes.
Can I digitize handwritten notes?
Yes. Neat handwriting often converts to text reasonably well, but results vary. For messy or very old handwriting, keep the images and transcribe the most important parts yourself.
Which file format should I use for scanned documents?
PDF is convenient for multi-page documents, and JPG or PNG work for single pages. Save extracted text as a Word or plain text file so it stays easy to open.
Digitize documents with free OCR · Proofread your digitised text · Step-by-step tutorials