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Add handwritten notes to a Session with your phone

Alexandre Blond 4 min read
A person using a phone above tabletop role-playing notes and dice

Paper notes are still incredibly useful during a game. A circled name, an arrow between two characters, or three hurried words can keep an idea in mind without pulling you out of the scene.

After the game, those pages can easily stay in a notebook, separate from the rest of the Session. VoLog lets you add them to an existing Session by using your phone's camera.

The process is simple: start from your computer, photograph the pages with your phone and review them before you finish. VoLog then adds the writing it can read to the Session's Full note.

Before you start

Gather the pages you want to add and put them in the right order. You can send up to 20 pages at a time. Before you continue, VoLog clearly shows the cost of adding them.

For writing that is easier to read, I recommend that you:

  • place each page on a flat surface;
  • use a space with enough light;
  • keep your hand and phone from casting a shadow;
  • include the whole page in the frame;
  • check that the writing is sharp before moving on.

Very small handwriting, a blurry photo, or a page photographed at an angle can make some passages difficult to understand. You can review the result afterwards, but a clear image should leave you with fewer corrections to make.

1. Open the Session

Start on your computer and open the Session that should receive your notes.

Choose "Scan handwritten notes". VoLog will display a QR code. Scan it with your phone's camera to open the page where you can take the photos.

There is no need to transfer the images to your computer or send them to yourself in a message. The QR code simply links your phone to the scan you just started.

2. Photograph the pages in order

Take a photo of the first page, quickly check the framing, and then continue with the next one.

The order matters. If your notebook covers the game across several pages, photograph them in the same order in which you would read them. The first photo will become the first part of the added writing, followed by the others.

You can watch the photos arrive on your computer. This makes it easy to check that none are missing before you continue.

3. Review everything before you finish

Take a moment to look over all the pages that arrived.

If an image is blurry, cropped, or appears twice, remove it and take it again. Check the page order as well. Fixing the selection now is much easier than moving the text around later.

When everything looks right, finish sending the pages from your computer.

4. Review the added text

VoLog turns the handwriting into text and adds it to the Full note for the Session. The photos are only used during this step. They are removed after the addition finishes successfully.

The Session does not become a photo album of your notebook. Your handwritten notes become text alongside the rest of what happened during the game.

Pay particular attention to names, invented words, and abbreviations. In a tabletop RPG, these are often the hardest parts to understand. If you only wrote a few letters as a reminder to yourself, you may need to expand them after the text has been added.

What this changes in practice

You do not have to choose between paper and VoLog. Your notebook can remain the quick reference you use during the game, then join the Session when you have time.

This approach is especially helpful for details that were never spoken aloud: a list written quietly, a personal suspicion, a name noted during a private exchange, or a note passed across the table. The Full note and your own pages can then sit in the same place.

Once you have reviewed the text, the notebook can go back into your bag. Your notes stay with the Session, without making you type them out line by line.

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