What it is
Transcription is the doorway to everything else: SandDune reads a photo of your handwritten page and produces editable digital text. It uses modern vision AI — the kind that finally reads real-world handwriting (slanted, cramped, coffee-stained) at a quality classic OCR never reached.
Why it matters
Nothing else in SandDune works without it. Search looks through transcriptions. Ask reads them. Timelines measure them. The better the transcription, the better your archive answers — which is also why every transcription is yours to correct.
How it works
- On a new note, upload your photo and tap Transcribe (see the full walkthrough).
- The scan runs in front of you — words appear live as the page is read. The progress you see is real, not an animation.
- When it finishes, the note saves automatically and opens in the viewer with the transcribed lines glowing over your handwriting.
Each transcribed page uses one transcription unit from your monthly allowance (Usage limits).
Tips for best results
- Light and flatness beat resolution. Even daylight and a page held flat matter more than a fancy camera.
- Fill the frame with the page. Crop out the desk, the coffee, the other page of the spread.
- One page per photo. Two-page spreads transcribe better as two notes.
- Fix small misses with Live Highlights. Tap the line, correct the word, done — see Edit your transcription.
- Set the real Date Written. The transcription is the text; the date is the timeline. Both matter.
Current limitations
- JPEG and PNG photos only — no PDFs, and one image per note.
- Blank-page guard: if no readable text is found, nothing saves (and nothing is wasted except the one unit for the attempt).
- Accuracy dips on very faint pencil, heavily decorated lettering, and dense margin annotations. Diagrams and drawings aren't reproduced — the words around them are.
- A Try again after a failed stream runs a fresh transcription and uses another unit; retrying a failed save never does.