Make transcribing historical manuscripts easier and more valuable using a desktop tool you already have. PDF software can let you zoom in on the manuscript, while transcribing the text as comments. You have not only transcribed; you have made the document searchable without separating it from the scanned image.
Why Transcribe?
You’ve found your great-grandfather’s will, written with a scratchy pen on now-yellowed and disintegrating paper. Reading it offers a challenge — a challenge you only want to suffer through once. You transcribe the document to make it easily usable from this point forward.
If you’re transcribing from the original, typing into document software like Microsoft Word, you are making the document more fragile with each touch. If you have to put a magnifying glass over the document to make things out, typing becomes tedious. You lose your place on the manuscript, then you lose it on the screen. Back and forth.
Clearly it makes sense to digitize the will before you go a step further. Using a scanner or camera, you make a representation of the will, and put the treasured paper document into a safe place.
Save the page scans into a PDF form. You can do this with your scanning software or you can paste the page images into a Word document and save it as a PDF.
Or, maybe you already have a scanned image, downloaded from FamilySearch or Ancestry.com. Save it to your computer.
Why transcribe in a PDF reader?
A PDF reader offers a good way to capture transcriptions for several reasons:
- PDF readers are an essential tool, so virtually any computer will have one.
- PDFs are, by their very nature, transportable documents. You can send one to a friend, and they’ll be able to read it, though your computers are vastly different from each other.
- PDF readers allow you to zoom in on the document. You’ll be able to see the handwritten text better than those who wrote it, in many cases.
- You will be able to transcribe while the document is displayed, without flipping back and forth. (This assumes you’re working on fairly standard hardware and not, say, a cell phone.)
- You will be able, in essence, to make the manuscript searchable.
- As you consult this PDF in the future, you will have both the scanned image and your transcription side by side. If you suspect you transcribed something wrongly, you will not have to go in search of the original again.
How do I transcribe in a PDF reader?
Most of us read our PDFs using Adobe Reader in one of its iterations. I am using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC for this exercise. But most of the PDF readers produced in the last few years will have similar features.
You can turn your PDF reader into a transcription tool by finding its Comment feature. The software might show your comment in a bubble on the page, wherever you clicked before adding the comment. But it should then offer you a view that let’s you see your comments in a panel together, like the one you see above.
You will transcribe optimally if you stop each line exactly where the manuscript does. This will help you find your way back through the handwritten manuscript, if you need to locate where a particular thing was said.
You can add multiple comments to each page, if you want to add other types of information. Perhaps the manuscript is raising questions for you. Add a comment.
Admittedly, you do not walk away with a stand-alone transcription. And in many cases you’ll never need one. But if you do, you’ll need to copy and paste each page’s transcribed text into a document. In fact, it could be a good practice to get into, to save each page’s text to another document as you go.
Ultimately, though, as you research and find the need to check back on a manuscript you have transcribed, you’ll usually find the PDF version most effective. You will be able to consult a picture of the original — something we often want to do.
I hope you find it helpful. If you’re using a PDF reader other than Adobe, I would welcome your comments about whether this is working on the other platforms.
Enjoy!
Interesting stuff!
I’m glad that iIfound your page! I will be following!
Thanks so much, Tracie, and welcome! –Donna
So glad I found this site!!! Great and helpful articles!!! Thank you so much!!!!!!!!
I’m so glad you found us, too, Bonnie. Welcome and thank you! — Donna
Once again, I’m trailing along behind everyone else. I have had problems with very wide will pages that have to be scrolled from side to side to get the full sentences. My hands have too much work to do. It’s hard to keep my place on the written words while I slide it from side to side and also type.
So I have started to use the dictation feature on my computer to enter the text first into my citation in my genealogy program (Reunion). My hands move the document from side to side, and my eyes and voice record what it says. Later, I can copy-and-paste it into its own text document, although I don’t usually bother. I wonder whether I could paste it into a comment on the PDF of the document, too?
Dictation on my computer is a new thing for me. Before that, I used my smartphone to create an email message and dictated into that, then sent it to myself for copying into the citation.
Of course, the dictation isn’t perfect, especially on some of the archaic and technical words, but it’s an improvement.
That’s a great idea, Marian. I go through phases when I use Windows voice recognition. It takes patience, but less, I’m sure, than scrolling back and forth to try to transcribe. You could absolutely paste the text into the comments in your PDF. Thanks!