Gemini turns handwritten notes into editable documents and PDFs

Google’s Gemini can now create and edit documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other files inside a conversation, according to TechRadar’s Eric Hal Schwartz. Users can upload a file, ask Gemini to transform it, preview the result, make manual edits or request changes to a selected section.

Schwartz tested the feature by photographing handwritten notes from a short presentation on sandwich history and asking Gemini to turn them into a readable PDF. The document retained the main points, including the story that John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, supposedly asked for meat between bread during a card game in 1762. It also preserved the caveat that the gambling story is probably exaggerated.

In a follow-up edit, Schwartz asked Gemini to move a section about medieval stale bread and add detail while otherwise keeping the document the same. The result included visible citation markers that did not cite anything. It also shortened some of the original wording, including the explanation of industrialization, and reduced the sliced-bread detail to a brief mention of its introduction in 1928.

The test suggests the feature can reduce retyping and allow revisions in the same conversation. Schwartz noted that users still need to check the output: Gemini may misread handwriting or add unsupported information, and editing can remove details from the source.