Pay as You Go
No commitment
£15 $15 €15 / 100 pages
One-time purchase. Valid for 1 year.
- AI-enhanced formatting
- Export to Markdown (plain text)
- Export to Microsoft Word
- Two-factor authentication
- API access
- No commitment
- Valid for 1 year
Transkribus alternative
Read historical handwriting now, with no model to train.
Transkribus can read old hands, but you pick or train models, work an academic interface, and get scholarly XML back. Handwriting OCR reads the same letters, registers and journals from the first upload, and hands you clean Word, Excel or plain text.
- ✓Accurate from the very first upload, no model training to set up
- ✓Clean, complete text on historical hands, without stray marks to fix
- ✓Keeps the original layout, and exports to Word, Excel and CSV
- ✓Built-in translation and a first-party API, on every plan
Complete
Transkribus vs Handwriting OCR
The history, without the setup
Transkribus is a powerful academic platform built around trainable models and scholarly output. Handwriting OCR is built to just read your documents and hand back something you can use straight away.
Feature
Transkribus
Handwriting OCR
Setup
Pick or train a model
No training, works immediately
Historical hands
Good, with stray marks & dropped words
Clean & complete
Messy / modern hands
Struggles
Built for messy & cursive
Output formats
Word, PDF, TXT, XML
Word, Excel, CSV, PDF, TXT, JSON
Tables & data to Excel
With extra setup
Custom extractors + tables (Pro and up)
Layout & formatting
Choppy, needs reflowing
Preserves the original
Built-in translation
—
300+ languages, no extra cost
Ease of use
Academic interface
Upload and go
Pricing
€19.99/mo for 150 credits
€19/mo for 250 pages
API
OAuth2, credit-based
First-party, simple token
Privacy
User-managed
Encrypted, never trained on, auto-deleted
Transkribus details, pricing and outputs from transkribus.org, June 2026 (tested on its free public models). Transkribus bills in credits, where a page with tables or fields can cost more than one credit.
On its home turf
A historical letter, read by each tool
Transkribus is built for exactly this kind of old hand, and it did a fair job. But it opened with '3 -' for 'It', invented two stray lines ('ƒ' and '9'), and dropped words. Handwriting OCR returned the whole passage clean, with no training and no setup.
A real early-1900s family letter
Original
Click to enlarge Handwriting OCR clean & complete, no training
Stillwater May 1st
Dear Maud
It rained this morning so I did not go to Church and now as the sun breaks through the clouds I am going to write you a few lines I should like to wait until Thursday morning & write you all about the Bishop's visit, the Confirmation and the reception to be held afterward in the Parish room but if I waited to write you about that you might be home
Transkribus stray marks + dropped words
Stillwater May 1st
Dear Maud
3 - rained this morning so I did not go to Church and now As the sun breaks through the clouds I am going to write you a few lines I should like to wait until Thursday & write you all about the Bishop's visit, the Confir-mation and the reception -be held afterward in ƒ 9 the Parish room but I waited to write you about that you might - be home
misread
Notes
- Transkribus reads historical hands with its public models, no custom training needed here, and got most of this letter. The gaps are the giveaway: 'It' read as '3 -', two invented lines ('ƒ' and '9'), and dropped words ('morning', 'to', 'if').
- Notice the shape, too: Transkribus returns choppy, line-by-line fragments you have to reflow, while Handwriting OCR keeps the original layout as clean paragraphs.
- Handwriting OCR returned the full passage with none of those, also with no training.
Source: Nellie McCluer family letter (early 1900s). Run through both tools, June 2026.
And off it
A messy modern page, read by each tool
Transkribus is tuned for historical archives. On one of the messiest modern hands people have shared online, its public models broke the page into fragments. Same image, same run.
One of Reddit's messiest journal pages
Original
Click to enlarge Handwriting OCR near-perfect
Jan 26 2018
Classes have started back up. Not too bad so far, just trying to keep on top of things. Going to work on a paper tomorrow, hopefully I can get my brain in gear. I don't know why, but it's just been a desert lately. Nothing forms, just a wasteland, but I guess even a wasteland eventually blooms life. Just need to fight through this funk or find some sort of inspiration. Why does my pen always fade? Is it the way I got to write? Or the pen itself? Maybe I'll try to use those art pens to add more color to these pages.
Work was pretty boring, not much happened. Just was talking to my coworker about schooling and my "best friend" just med until she needs me abandoning was to think about cutting her out, because she isn't doing it maliciously, just doesn't really listen when both Mom and I tell her "hey, you can't just drop your friends like that", but oh well...
Transkribus broke into fragments
Jan He 20th tarted back up. No Classes have Yong too bad Dumey keep on top work on tomorow, kopefully 8 I can get 12. I don't know why my but beet desen Før late just a wasidard gues was even a was belong everth Oblog life. Just need to tkrove this funk or One till B0S of inspiration. Als en alueys "fas" way. I got the Den, Usile. try to All use those are Gada more cold Sag 8 to work was Prêtter Franz much happened. not Just was "talk" an coworker about 20 nooung and ny best friend just ned until she needs me abandoking e: „Dts., Do c LOLD to think about cutting her out because she isn't doing it maliciously 18 dolsrit really sister when paith com and I call here they, you drop your friends like that, Der on
misread
crossed out
Notes
- Same image, run through both tools. On a hand this messy, Transkribus broke it into disconnected fragments; Handwriting OCR returned the full page in order.
- The struck-through 'med' is exactly what the writer crossed out. Handwriting OCR caught it as struck text, which you can keep or drop on export.
Source: Original image: r/Journaling. Run through both tools, June 2026.
From people who tried Transkribus first
Researchers, archivists and families who switched
"We worked with Transkribus for our museum inventory books, but it was weeks of training the layout and writing and we still weren't happy. With Handwriting OCR, at least 90% accuracy, and so wonderful on formatting."
Astrid H.
Museum curator, 20,000-page collection
"I used Transkribus on its best models for thousands of German, French and English letters. A document that took 10+ hours to prepare there takes me half an hour here, and it's better at bad handwriting than even the best Transkribus model."
Peter M.
Transcribing thousands of historical letters
"Transkribus needed 20 pages to train a model and 10 minutes a page to fix. After 18 months I had 9 pages done. Handwriting OCR transcribed the first page 100% in six seconds. I had all 427 pages of my mother memoir in under a minute."
James L.
Digitising his mother's memoir
"Both Transkribus and Handwriting OCR were suggested on the CODE4LIB list. I tried both on a messy page of my college notes. Yours was by far and away the clear winner, extremely accurate."
John L.
Library systems coordinator
"I'd tried Google Lens, Transkribus and Pen2Text. Transkribus was by far the worst, despite its reputation. Handwriting OCR has by far the best transcription, and it's not even close."
A.M.
400+ documents, old-school cursive
"I tried Transkribus and it wouldn't even upload my JPG. I uploaded two images of an 1820 will to Handwriting OCR instead and was totally impressed, 80 to 90% accuracy on a 200-year-old hand."
Heather K.
Family history researcher
No setup
No model to train, no cleanup to do
Transkribus is built around training a model on your specific hand, and even then you often reflow line spacing, fix end-of-line hyphenation and sort out crossed-out text by hand afterward. Handwriting OCR reads the document on the first upload and returns clean text that already keeps the original layout.
- ✓ No ground-truth transcription or model training step
- ✓ Line spacing, hyphenation and crossed-out text handled for you
- ✓ Clean, ready-to-use text in seconds, on historical and modern hands alike
Practical output
Structured data, straight to a spreadsheet
Both tools export Word, PDF and plain text. The difference is structured data: Handwriting OCR's custom extractors and table recognition pull handwritten forms and tables into proper Excel and CSV columns, with no model setup to do first.
- ✓ Custom extractors pull named fields into columns (Pro and up)
- ✓ Automatic table recognition to Excel or CSV
- ✓ Word, PDF and plain text on every plan too
Built in, not bolted on
A first-party API on every plan
Transkribus offers a developer API with OAuth2 and the same credit accounting. Handwriting OCR’s API is our own and simple: a Bearer token, webhooks, and structured JSON or direct Excel and CSV. It’s on every plan, including the free trial.
Private by default
Your documents stay yours
Files are encrypted in transit and at rest, never used to train our models, and auto-deleted on a schedule you set (default 7 days, anywhere from 15 minutes to 14 days). Family letters and records never become someone’s training data.
Read it in any language
Built-in translation, no extra cost
Transcribe a letter in German, French, Spanish or any of 300+ languages, then translate it to English (or back) in the same workflow. It’s included on every plan, with no second tool and no extra charge.
Being fair
When Transkribus is the better pick
Transkribus is a serious, respected platform, and for some projects it is genuinely the right choice. If one of these is you, it earns its place, and that's an honest answer, not a sales one.
- ✓You are publishing a scholarly digital edition and need PAGE, ALTO or TEI XML
- ✓You are training a custom model on one large single-scribe archive
- ✓You want the academic cooperative ecosystem and its brand for citation
Pricing
Plans for every project
Pay-as-you-go credits or monthly subscriptions. Cancel any time.
Starter
250 pages / month
£19 $19 €19 £16 $16 €16 /month
Billed monthlyBilled annually
- AI-enhanced formatting
- Export to Markdown (plain text)
- Export to Microsoft Word
- Two-factor authentication
- API access
- Renews monthly, cancel any time
- Additional pages: £6.00 $8.00 €6.50 £5.50 $6.00 €6.00 / 100 pages
Pro
1,000 pages / month
£49 $59 €59 £41 $50 €50 /month
Billed monthlyBilled annually
- Everything in Starter, plus:
- Export tables to Microsoft Excel
- Custom extractors
- Additional pages: £5.00 $6.00 €5.00 £5.00 $5.00 €5.00 / 100 pages
Business
10,000 pages / month
£399 $499 €490 £333 $416 €409 /month
Billed monthlyBilled annually
- Everything in Pro, plus:
- Up to 5 team members
- Configurable audit logging
- Additional pages: £4.00 $5.00 €4.50 £3.50 $4.00 €4.00 / 100 pages
For higher volumes, options for offline deployment, or any other custom requirements, please contact us.
FAQ
Transkribus alternative: common questions
Anything else? Get in touch and we'll answer right away.
What is Handwriting OCR?
Handwriting OCR is an AI service that turns photos and scans of handwritten documents into clean, editable text and structured data. It reads historical and modern hands from the first upload, with no model to train, and exports to Word, PDF, plain text and (on Pro and up) Excel and CSV.
Who is behind Handwriting OCR?
Handwriting OCR is built by a small independent UK team. The company was founded in London in 2023, runs as a focused product, and never trains its models on your documents.
How is Handwriting OCR different from Transkribus?
Transkribus is an academic platform built around trainable models and scholarly XML output (PAGE, ALTO, TEI). Handwriting OCR is built to just read your documents: it works from the first upload with no model training, returns clean Word, Excel, CSV or plain text, includes translation, and has a simple first-party API on every plan.
Do I need to train a model to read old handwriting?
No. Handwriting OCR reads historical hands out of the box, with no ground-truth transcription or model training step. Upload a letter, register or diary and you get text back in seconds. The comparison higher up this page shows it on a real early-1900s letter.
What file formats do I get back?
Word (.docx), PDF, plain text and JSON on every plan, plus Excel (.xlsx) and CSV for tables and custom extractors on Pro and up. The original layout is preserved, so there is little reflowing to do before you can read or share your transcription.
Is my handwriting kept private?
Your documents are encrypted in transit and at rest, are never used to train our models, and are auto-deleted on a schedule you control (default 7 days, configurable from 15 minutes to 14 days). We do not currently offer HIPAA BAAs; for compliance questions, get in touch.
Try it on your own documents
Read your archive today, not after training a model.
Free trial credits, no credit card. Upload a letter, register or diary and see the text come back in seconds.
Our experience
Reading historical hands without the setup
Transkribus earned its reputation on serious historical work, and for training a model on a single huge archive it is still a strong tool. But most people who write to us do not have weeks to spend on ground-truth transcription and model training. They have a box of letters, a parish register, a diary, a will, and they want to read it now.
That is the gap Handwriting OCR fills. Our models read historical and modern hands out of the box, with no training step, so a genuine early-1900s letter comes back as clean text on the first upload, as the comparison above shows. The trade we have made is deliberate: we do not output scholarly PAGE or TEI XML, and we are not a cooperative academic platform. We give you accurate text in the formats you already use, in seconds.
Where historical documents get genuinely hard, faded ink, torn pages, and older scripts like German Sütterlin and Kurrent, accuracy drops for any tool and you will correct more by hand. We are honest about that. The output is editable either way, the translation is built in, and the free trial is the fastest way to see how it does on your own document.
If you have a tricky page or a large archive and want a recommendation before you start, get in touch with a sample image and we will tell you what to expect.