Three notebooks of meeting notes. You want them digital — searchable, shareable, backed up. Photographing each page and converting to PDF is the fastest path.
Photograph the pages
Use a document scanner app — iPhone Notes' built-in scanner, Adobe Scan, Microsoft Lens, Google Drive's scan. All correct perspective, enhance contrast, and crop automatically. Far better than the regular Camera app.
Work in good light, lay pages flat, take one photo per page (or per double-spread if you want the layout to match the notebook).
Combine into one PDF
Drop all the page photos into Flint's Image to PDF. Each photo becomes a page. The order you drop them is the order in the PDF, so number your filenames first (01.jpg, 02.jpg, etc.) for big batches.
Result: a single PDF representing the whole notebook. Searchable in the file system, shareable as a single attachment, backupable to cloud storage.
OCR for handwriting (with caveats)
OCR on handwriting has improved dramatically in the last few years but is still imperfect. Block-printed neat handwriting OCRs at 80-90% accuracy. Cursive or messy handwriting is much lower.
Run OCR on the resulting PDF if you want searchable text. Expect to find the words mostly accurately; don't trust the OCR for verbatim transcription of important content.
Or use a notes app
If your primary goal is digital notes, consider apps designed for it: Notability, GoodNotes, OneNote. They handle handwriting natively, integrate with iPad's Apple Pencil, and offer real-time OCR.
PDF conversion is for archival of existing paper notes. For new notes, going digital from the start is better.
FAQ
Will OCR work on my handwriting?
Neat printing yes (mostly), cursive is hit-or-miss. Test on a sample page before relying on it for critical content.
How many pages can I do at once?
Generous limits — hundreds at a time is fine. Massive batches are best split for upload speed.
Should I scan or photograph?
Phone scan apps are nearly as good as a flat-bed scanner now, and much faster. Use a scanner if you need archival quality.
What about diagrams and drawings?
They convert as images — perfect fidelity. OCR ignores drawings (good — you didn't want them tokenised anyway).
Three notebooks, one PDF, backed up forever. Convert your handwritten notes to PDF and digitise.