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The best way to transcribe with FromThePage is to treat it as a documentary-editing tool, not just a typing surface: set up a subject-tagging convention, agree on markup for unclear and deleted text up front, and use the built-in review workflow so every page is checked once before you export. FromThePage shines on continuous prose — letters, diaries, minute books — where the transcript sits directly beside the image.
When should you choose FromThePage over other platforms?
Choose it when your sources are running text rather than forms. Its page-by-page editor keeps the full transcript visible next to a zoomable image, which is exactly what diaries and correspondence need. It also supports structured-data tables for ledgers and registers, but for very dense tabular material a marking-based platform can be quicker for volunteers. A quick rule:
text
Letters / diaries / minutes → free-text page transcription
Ledgers / registers → structured-data tables
Mixed correspondence + lists → free-text + inline tables per pageHow do you set up subjects and indexing?
FromThePage's standout feature is subject linking: volunteers wrap a name or place in markup and it becomes an index entry across the whole collection. Decide your subject categories before launch — typically People, Places, and Organisations — and document how to disambiguate (e.g. always tag "J. Smith" to a canonical "John Smith (1812-1889)"). Inconsistent subject tagging produces a fragmented index that is hard to repair later.
text
[[John Smith (1812-1889)|J. Smith]] → person subject, displayed as "J. Smith"
[[Norwich, Norfolk|Norwich]] → place subjectWhat markup conventions should you agree first?
Settle these four cases in your collaborator guidance before anyone transcribes a page:
| Situation | Convention | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Unclear reading | square-bracket query | meet[ing]? |
| Illegible text | fixed token | [illegible] |
| Deletion in original | strike markup | ~~struck word~~ |
| Editorial note | note markup | footnote-style annotation |
Recording these in a one-page style sheet makes your output consistent and your editorial decisions defensible to later researchers.
How does the transcribe-then-review workflow work?
FromThePage does not collect many independent copies and reconcile them automatically. Instead it uses a two-stage model: a volunteer transcribes a page, then a reviewer marks it as reviewed (or corrects it). This is closer to traditional documentary editing. To run it well:
- Enable the Review workflow in collaboration settings.
- Assign experienced volunteers as reviewers.
- Track the page status dashboard — pages move from blank to transcribed to reviewed.
- Only export pages that have reached reviewed status for your final dataset.
Can you load images straight from IIIF?
Yes — and you should, if your images are already in a IIIF-compliant repository. Point FromThePage at the IIIF manifest URL for a work and it ingests the canvases without you re-uploading anything. This keeps a single source of truth for the images and lets your transcription sit alongside the same pixels your catalogue serves.
How should you export and preserve results?
Export early and often, even mid-project, so you always have a recoverable snapshot. FromThePage offers several formats from one menu:
- TEI-XML — for scholarly editions and long-term preservation.
- Plain text — for full-text search and corpus work.
- CSV — for the structured-data tables.
- Subject CSV — the index of people and places, for prosopography.
Store the TEI export in your repository alongside the image identifiers; that pairing is what makes the work reusable a decade from now.
Key Takeaways
- FromThePage suits continuous prose; use tables for registers and ledgers.
- Define subject categories and disambiguation rules before launch to get a clean index.
- Agree markup for unclear, illegible, deleted and annotated text up front.
- Quality comes from transcribe-then-review, not automated multi-pass consensus.
- Ingest images by IIIF manifest to keep one source of truth.
- Export TEI-XML plus the subject index and preserve them with image identifiers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What kinds of documents suit FromThePage best?
Continuous prose — letters, diaries, minute books and notebooks — where volunteers transcribe whole pages next to the image. For dense tabular records, its structured-data tables work but Zooniverse-style marking may fit better.
Does FromThePage support TEI or markup?
Yes. It uses lightweight wiki-style markup for subjects, notes and page references that exports to TEI-XML, plus structured tables that export to CSV. You do not write raw XML by hand.
How does FromThePage handle multiple transcribers on one page?
Pages are normally transcribed once and then reviewed, rather than collected as independent passes. Quality comes from a transcribe-then-review workflow, not from automated consensus across many copies.
Can I import images directly from a IIIF repository?
Yes. FromThePage can ingest collections by IIIF manifest URL, so material already exposed via IIIF can be loaded without re-uploading the images.
How do I export finished transcriptions?
Use the export menu to download plain text, TEI-XML, CSV (for tables), or a printable PDF. Subject indexes export separately so you can build a name or place index.