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# Clean text from messy handwriting
- URL: https://www.penlo.app/blog/clean-text-from-messy-handwriting/
- Published: 2026-10-16T08:39:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-18T10:20:53.000Z
- Description: How Penlo joins broken lines, fixes misreads using context and tidies punctuation, and how to correct anything by hand without losing your edits.
- Author: Michal Wlosik
- Tags: Guides

Handwriting recognition has come a long way, but raw transcriptions of handwritten notes still look messy: sentences broken in half at the edge of the page, a misread word here and there, stray symbols from doodles and bullet points. Penlo cleans this up for you while it reads the page, and lets you fix anything it gets wrong.

This is part of our [getting started series](https://www.penlo.app/blog/getting-started-with-penlo/).

## Three cleanup switches

Penlo reads every page with Google Gemini. While it reads, it can tidy the text in three ways. You'll find them in **Settings › Processing**, all switched on by default:

- **Join broken lines.** Your handwriting wraps when it reaches the edge of the page. Penlo joins those lines back into normal sentences, while keeping real structure: paragraphs, headings and list items stay on their own lines.
- **Fix spelling and grammar.** Penlo uses the context of the whole page to settle unclear words and fix obvious misreads. It never rephrases or changes your meaning, and names, numbers and technical terms are kept as written.
- **Tidy punctuation.** Consistent quotes, dashes, spacing and bullets.

![Settings, Processing: switches for reading new notes, text cleanup and summaries](https://www.penlo.app/content/images/2026/10/image-mvapt9br.webp)

Settings › Processing.

**Want the raw transcription?** Switch all three off and Penlo writes down exactly what's on the page, line for line.

## What the difference looks like

Here's part of a real handwritten page, read with the cleanup switches off and then on:

**Raw**  
Pain: needs to find specific case  
names in old notes. On-device  
is "miserable".  
search  
Days for Notion. Wants notes IN  
Notion automatically

**Cleaned up**  
Pain: needs to find specific case names in old notes. On-device search is "miserable".  
Pays for Notion. Wants notes IN Notion automatically.

The lines are joined into sentences, the word "search" that was squeezed above the line lands where it belongs, and "Days" is corrected to "Pays" because that's what makes sense on the page.

## Fix anything by hand

No transcription is perfect. If Penlo gets a word wrong, open the notebook and click into the text in the **Text** tab, next to the page. Type your fix and it's saved automatically.

![A notebook open in Penlo: handwritten page on the left, its text and summary on the right](https://www.penlo.app/content/images/2026/10/image-mvapt4uk.webp)

Each page next to its text. Click into the text to edit it.

Pages you've changed are marked **Edited**. If you change your mind, the revert button next to it brings back Penlo's original transcription. Your corrections are used everywhere: in search, Penlo AI, the notebook summary and your exports.

![A page marked Edited in Penlo, with the revert button next to it](https://www.penlo.app/content/images/2026/10/image-mvapt6ev.webp)

Pages you correct are marked Edited, and can be reverted.

## Re-run OCR on older notes

Changing the cleanup switches affects notebooks Penlo reads from then on. To apply them to notes you already have, open a notebook, click **⋯** and choose **Re-run OCR**. To do many at once, select notebooks on the dashboard and re-run them together.

Re-running never throws away your work: by default, pages you corrected by hand keep your version, and only the other pages are read again. You can also choose to replace everything with a fresh transcription.

## Summaries in your language

Every notebook gets a short AI summary at the top of its Text tab, written from the cleaned-up and corrected text. In Settings › Processing you can choose the language summaries are written in, whatever language your notes are in, and regenerate them all with one click.

[Try Penlo free for 7 days](https://notes.penlo.app/login?mode=signup&ref=penlo.app)