Some archives are not photographs. A shoebox of boarding passes, a folded note from school, four years of messages, a receipt from the first restaurant.
These print well — better than people expect — but they behave differently from photographs and want handling accordingly.
Photograph them, do not scan them
Counter-intuitive, and it holds for almost everything in this category.
A phone photograph taken flat in daylight keeps the object: the fold, the texture, the slightly torn corner, the shadow along the crease. A flatbed scan removes all of that and returns a clean rectangle that could have been printed yesterday.
For a ticket or a handwritten note, the wear is the content. Keep it.
Flat surface, daylight from a window, no flash, phone parallel, fill the frame. Sending photos without losing quality →
What each type needs
| Material | Print it | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Handwriting | Large, at least half a page | Small handwriting becomes illegible |
| Boarding passes, tickets | Actual size or slightly larger | Faded thermal print may not reproduce |
| Messages and chats | A short excerpt, not a scroll | Screenshots are low resolution |
| Receipts | Small, as texture | Thermal paper fades to nothing |
| Certificates, cards | Half to full page | Glare if photographed at an angle |
| Pressed flowers, fabric | Photograph on a plain ground | Shadows read as dirt |
The thermal paper problem
Worth knowing in advance because it is the one thing that cannot be fixed at print stage: till receipts and older boarding passes fade to blank. The ink is heat-sensitive and it goes, sometimes completely, within a few years.
If you have any and they still show something, photograph them now, whether or not you ever make anything. That is a genuinely time-limited archive.
Which format
A magazine handles mixed material best. It has full pages for a letter, small placements for a ticket, and text pages for context — and it can alternate between photographs and objects without either looking out of place.
A card deck works if the material is discrete. One ticket per card, one note per card.
A print pack does not. Loose prints of paper objects read as photocopies rather than as keepsakes, because there is nothing around them to give them context.
What to leave out
Anything needing to be read at length. A full page of dense handwriting will be admired rather than read. Excerpt it — the two lines that matter, large.
Screenshots of long threads. They are low resolution and unreadable at print size. Quote the exchange as set text instead; it reads better and prints sharply. How to write a caption that lands →
Anything you would be upset to see cropped. Objects photographed at an angle sometimes need trimming to sit on a page. Say if something must appear whole.
Frequently asked
Can you print handwriting and letters in a photo book? Yes, and they print well. Photograph them flat rather than scanning, so the fold and texture survive.
Should I scan tickets or photograph them? Photograph them. A scan removes the wear, and for a ticket the wear is most of what makes it worth keeping.
Will old receipts print? Only if they still show something. Thermal paper fades to blank within a few years, so photograph anything legible now.
Can I include screenshots of messages? Better to quote the exchange as set text. Screenshots are low resolution and print soft at any size worth reading.
Which format handles mixed material best? A magazine. It can give a letter a full page and a ticket a corner, and alternate with photographs without either looking out of place.
Part of our guide to choosing a photo gift format. See also: printing screenshots and chat threads, photo resolution for printing and turning old family photos into an album.
Room for everything: Photo magazines from ₹499 · All 11 keepsakes