Why French handwriting trips up most converters
French schoolchildren learn a joined, looped cursive (the écriture cursive taught on Seyès ruled paper), and many adults keep writing that way. The letters flow into each other, the capital letters are decorative, and accents are often a quick flick placed slightly to the side of the letter they belong to. Generic OCR either drops those accents or attaches them to the wrong vowel.
This converter is told up front that the text is French, so it expects é, è, ê, à, ç, œ and the rest, and it knows the French habit of crossing the 7 and giving the 1 a long upstroke that can look like a 7 to an English-trained reader.
Good fits for this tool
- Class notes from a French course or a lycée exchange
- Letters and postcards from French-speaking relatives
- Old recipes written in a grandparent's cursive
- Handwritten French on Seyès (grands carreaux) paper
- Québécois and Belgian handwriting, which follow the same accent rules
It transcribes, it doesn't translate
The output is the French text exactly as written, mistakes included. That matters if you're a teacher checking a dictée or a genealogist quoting a letter. If you want English, paste the result into a translator afterwards; you'll get a much better translation from clean typed French than from a blurry photo.
Photo tips for French cursive
- Seyès paper has a lot of lines. Shoot in good light so the ink stands out from the grid.
- Get close enough that each accent is a visible mark, not a speck.
- For long letters, photograph one page at a time and upload them together.
Working with printed pages or screenshots? Try French OCR.
Frequently asked questions
Does it keep French accents and ligatures?
Yes. It outputs é, è, ê, ë, à, â, ç, ù, û, ô, î, ï, œ and æ as written. If the writer left an accent off, it stays off; nothing is auto-corrected.
Can it read old French handwriting from the 1800s?
It usually does well with 19th and early 20th century French correspondence. Very faded ink and heavy flourishes may produce some [?] marks for you to check.
Will it translate French handwriting to English?
No, it gives you the French text. Copy it into a translator if you need English. Translating typed text gives far better results than translating from an image.
Is there a French-language version of this page?
Yes, the same tool is available in French at /fr/ecriture-manuscrite-en-texte.
Do I need an account?
No account is needed for your first image. A free account gives you 3 credits plus 1 free credit every day.