Decoding difficult handwriting Thread poster: Keziah Cooper
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Hello!
Firstly, I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong place - I had a good look around but I'm new to proz, so if this is an inappropriate post for this forum I'm sorry!
I'm translating some letters from French to English at the moment, and they're all quite old, and messily handwritten in ink which has spread and seeped into the page a bit. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble reading about 1 in 5 words - the handwriting style is messy but also unusual, with some capit... See more Hello!
Firstly, I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong place - I had a good look around but I'm new to proz, so if this is an inappropriate post for this forum I'm sorry!
I'm translating some letters from French to English at the moment, and they're all quite old, and messily handwritten in ink which has spread and seeped into the page a bit. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble reading about 1 in 5 words - the handwriting style is messy but also unusual, with some capitals in the middle of words, some words squashed at the end of a line, and some words which just look like squiggles!
I was wondering if anyone knows any good resources for learning to read bad handwriting, or any strategies you use? I've googled it and found a few websites, but they tend to be explaining how to read French handwriting in general, rather than messy handwriting.
If anyone has any ideas I'd be very grateful!
Best wishes,
Keziah ▲ Collapse
| | | | | | | Decoding difficult handwriting | Apr 28, 2015 |
Scan and make the hand written document as a PDF file. Please ensure the scan quality is good. Then zoom the words that are not legible one by one to a size, where it does not blur and you can make them out. From my experience most illegible words can be understood by zooming it to any size between 150 to 200 % in Adobe Acrobat. Once magnified the contours of each alphabet in words would be clear and can be deciphered with reasonable accuracy.In case you have doubt over some words, based on the ... See more Scan and make the hand written document as a PDF file. Please ensure the scan quality is good. Then zoom the words that are not legible one by one to a size, where it does not blur and you can make them out. From my experience most illegible words can be understood by zooming it to any size between 150 to 200 % in Adobe Acrobat. Once magnified the contours of each alphabet in words would be clear and can be deciphered with reasonable accuracy.In case you have doubt over some words, based on the context you can almost find out the word or ask some experts in French and get it clarified. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Neptunia
Local time: 12:16
Italian to English
| it takes practice | Apr 28, 2015 |
I know this isn't really answering your question, but I think deciphering old handwriting is a skill you acquire over time. I am sure you have already made great strides and know that a certain heavy squiggle means a certain letter combination. There are also people who specialize in reading old documents in various libraries and archives who might be able to give you a hand or at least some pointers. If it is a matter of just puzzling through, consider posting images of snippets of some of your... See more I know this isn't really answering your question, but I think deciphering old handwriting is a skill you acquire over time. I am sure you have already made great strides and know that a certain heavy squiggle means a certain letter combination. There are also people who specialize in reading old documents in various libraries and archives who might be able to give you a hand or at least some pointers. If it is a matter of just puzzling through, consider posting images of snippets of some of your problems in this thread and there may be quite a few eyeballs willing to give it a go. ▲ Collapse
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I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but what I do is upload the image (I usually work with scanned pdfs) to Photoshop, where I can clean up the image a little.
The process I follow is to:
Erase the background to get a clear view of the text
Straighten the text out and, if blotchy, you can select the text, move the selection line inward (the "marching ants" ^_^) and delete the outside of the text, which helps highlight the letters a little more clearly. ... See more I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but what I do is upload the image (I usually work with scanned pdfs) to Photoshop, where I can clean up the image a little.
The process I follow is to:
Erase the background to get a clear view of the text
Straighten the text out and, if blotchy, you can select the text, move the selection line inward (the "marching ants" ^_^) and delete the outside of the text, which helps highlight the letters a little more clearly.
After that, I really just depend on the context and, should that not be enough, a well placed [Illegible] will do the trick. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Keziah Cooper
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:16
French to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you - these are all such helpful ideas! I sat with a friend yesterday and painstakingly went through every scrawl and we have most of them down and the missing bits can mostly be understood through context. I've also sent it to an elderly relative who speaks French - thank you for that advice! I think the client is ok with it, but I've got 3 more to do so this advice will be very useful!
Thanks again,
Keziah
| | | | LEXpert 
United States
Local time: 05:16
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
| Cryptological approach | May 2, 2015 |
I approach it as a codebreaker might...
Anything that appears within an actual context (as opposed to isolated scribbles) can usually be deciphered based on what it is surrounded by and focusing on the most likely options for the subject matter and the language. If you have enough text as a sample, you can usually find the same scribble somewhere else in the text but hopefully in a more legible context.
The suggestion to ask a native speaker is a good one. Generally, native sp... See more I approach it as a codebreaker might...
Anything that appears within an actual context (as opposed to isolated scribbles) can usually be deciphered based on what it is surrounded by and focusing on the most likely options for the subject matter and the language. If you have enough text as a sample, you can usually find the same scribble somewhere else in the text but hopefully in a more legible context.
The suggestion to ask a native speaker is a good one. Generally, native speakers seem more adept at reading handwriting than nonnatives. ▲ Collapse
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