What is in a scan
A scan holds the picture, not the structure.
Optical character recognition (OCR) can read printed and typewritten text from a scan. It cannot see that a line is a heading, that a paragraph is clause 1.1, or that a note at the foot of the page belongs with the body text. Those things have to be rebuilt before the document is useful in Word again.
Printed and typewritten text
Reads best. A smudge, a stamp or a handwritten note can leave a word uncertain, and a poor scan can be read wrongly without anyone noticing.
Headings and numbering
Not in the file. A converter that returns the page as floating text boxes leaves them for you to redo by hand.
Footnotes, definitions, tables
These need to come back as editable Word structure, not a picture of the page.
Three ways firms do it today
Retype it, convert it, or rebuild it.
Retype it
Careful retyping is accurate but slow, and every retyped word is a new chance for a mistake. Nothing marks the words a tired reader misread.
Run it through a basic converter
Fast, but pages may come back as floating text boxes, damaged text is left in the page, and whether the wording is checked varies by tool. See the comparison.
Rebuild it with LexForge
OCR reads the words and AI rebuilds the headings, numbering and structure. The draft is then checked against the words read from your file, and uncertain words are highlighted for a person to check.
What LexForge returns
An editable Word draft, ready to review.
- 01
Upload your house style once
Optional. A Word template or a well-formatted document teaches LexForge your headings, numbering and footnotes. How Reconstruct with House Style works, and what a house style is.
- 02
Upload the scan
A scanned PDF or a Word (.docx) file, up to 100 MB; a PDF can contain up to 200 pages. A Word file keeps its own clause numbering; your house style's numbering is applied to scanned PDFs only. Documents are stored and read in the UK, and nothing you upload is used to train AI models. Security page.
- 03
Download the draft
Headings, numbering, definitions and tables come back as editable Word structure. Footnote text is kept and returned as editable text in the body rather than as Word's linked footnotes. Every draft is checked against the words read from the source.
Before you rely on it
Review the highlighted words. Then the rest.
Every scan comes back as a review copy, with uncertain words highlighted for you to check against the original. The check confirms the draft matches what was read; it cannot prove that a poor scan was read correctly. How the wording check works.
Then read the rest against the original. Give most attention to names, dates, figures, clause numbers and defined terms, where one wrong character changes the meaning.
See it on a real page
A 1987 lease, before and after.
Fictional specimen. Every name, party and clause is invented, and no client data is used.
Try it on a scan of your own.
The free trial needs no card.