Rescue your messy archive scans for free
Have a folder full of PDFs, photos, newspaper clippings, microfiche scans, or archival files named IMG_0047? Upload 10 documents free and see how Incipit turns them into searchable metadata, citations, provenance, and research connections.
No credit card required. Built by a historian for historians.
- IMG_0047.pdf
- scan_183.jpg
- newspaper_page_12.png
- folder_unknown_2.pdf
- Title
- El problema indígena y la tierra
- Publication
- Amauta
- Date
- September 1928
- Author
- J.C. Mariátegui
- Language
- Spanish
- Citation status
- Ready from verified fields
- Connections
- People, places, themes, and related documents
The archive folder always makes sense in the reading room
You scan as much as you can. You tell yourself you will organize it later. At the time, every file has a reason.
Six months later, the filenames remain, but the context is gone.
- What is this document?
- Where did it come from?
- Why did I scan it?
- Which collection, box, or folder did it belong to?
- What other document was it connected to?
- Can I cite it safely?
Incipit helps give each document an identity before your memory becomes the archive.
The Free Archive Scan Rescue
Start with the 3 to 10 documents you least want to organize manually. Incipit helps extract metadata, preserve provenance, surface connections, and generate citations from verified fields.
Upload PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, photos, and archival scans
Extract titles, dates, authors, publications, languages, entities, and source details
Review confidence scores before trusting important fields
Preserve provenance, notes, and original filenames
Surface cross-document connections across your archive
Generate Chicago/Turabian-style citations from verified metadata
Search your archive in plain language
From scan to searchable archive
Upload your messiest files
Start with photos, PDFs, scans, microfiche images, newspaper pages, letters, reports, or whatever you brought back from the archive.
Incipit reads the image directly
Instead of relying only on a broken OCR layer, Incipit analyzes the document image and extracts structured metadata.
You verify what matters
Review extracted fields, confirm what is right, correct what is wrong, and flag what remains uncertain.
Connections surface over time
Names, dates, places, themes, and research notes help reveal links between documents that would otherwise stay buried.
Search and cite with more confidence
Your folder becomes a searchable archive with provenance, trust tiers, and citation-ready metadata.
Built for researchers who live in primary sources
Historians returning from archival fieldwork
PhD students organizing dissertation sources
Faculty managing long-term research collections
Latin Americanists and multilingual researchers
Scholars working with newspapers, letters, state records, reports, microfilm, or special collections
Research groups trying to preserve source context across multiple people
From anonymous scan to research object
Before
- IMG_0047.pdf
- IMG_0048.pdf
- scan_final_v2.jpg
- unknown_newspaper.png
A file name is not a memory system.
After
- Title
- El problema indígena y la tierra
- Publication
- Amauta
- Place
- Lima, Peru
- Date
- September 1928
- Author
- J.C. Mariátegui
- Language
- Spanish
- Status
- Verified metadata
- Citation
- Ready from confirmed fields
- Connections
- Indigenous question, land reform, Peru, pan-American networks
Incipit gives the document an identity you can revisit, search, and cite.
Built by a historian who had this exact problem
Incipit was built from firsthand archival research: reading rooms, special collections, newspaper scans, handwritten notes, renamed files, broken OCR, and source connections that lived only in memory.
This is not a generic AI chat layer. It is research infrastructure for historians who need provenance, verification, citations, and durable archives.
Spanish, Portuguese, and English source materials.
Your archive should be useful without becoming reckless
Incipit is designed for academic caution. Extracted fields are not silently treated as truth. You review, verify, and correct before relying on metadata or citations.
- Confidence scores for extracted fields
- Researcher verification before committing important metadata
- Uncertain fields can remain flagged
- Provenance and original filenames are preserved
- Citations come from verified information, not silent guesses
Common questions
Do I need a credit card?
No. You can start with 10 lifetime documents on the free plan.
What should I upload first?
Start with the 3 to 10 documents you most dread organizing manually: unnamed scans, old newspaper pages, microfiche images, photos from fieldwork, or PDFs with missing context.
What file types does Incipit support?
Incipit supports the file types already supported by the product, including PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, photos, and archival scans.
Is this only for historians?
Incipit is built around historical research workflows, but it can help researchers working with primary sources, archival materials, and source-heavy projects.
Is the AI always right?
No. Incipit is designed for review and verification. Extracted metadata should be checked by the researcher before it is trusted, cited, or used in an argument.
Can Incipit generate citations?
Yes. Incipit generates Chicago/Turabian-style citations from verified metadata. If a field is uncertain, Incipit should not fabricate certainty.
Will someone at Incipit read my uploaded documents?
No. Uploaded documents are processed to provide the service. Private research documents are not personally reviewed unless the user explicitly chooses to share information through a separate support or contact channel.
Start with the messiest 10 documents in your archive folder
Do not reorganize everything first. Do not wait until the perfect system exists. Upload the documents that are currently hardest to identify, search, or cite.
No credit card required. Built for historians, not generic document chat.