The AI started transcribing my handwritten PDFs into Excel, then gave up

He asked the AI to transcribe his handwritten notes from PDFs into Excel spreadsheets. It started doing it, then gave up.

This one went wrong. Read what happened so you don’t hit the same problem.

How it works

Asks the AI to transcribe the handwritten notes from his PDFs into Excel
The AI starts the transcription
The AI gives up before finishing

Why it’s worth knowing

Transcribing handwriting from a PDF into a spreadsheet is the kind of dull job the AI is sold for, and it quit partway through.

Where it’s from

Summarized from a public post on bsky.app. See the original ↗

Upgraded prompt

A ready-to-use prompt for this idea, built from research on what makes AI agents do the job right: who the AI should be, the exact steps, and a check to make sure it was done the way you wanted.

1Who the AI should be

2The prompt, with the steps

3The check when it’s done

Upgraded prompts are coming soon.

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