# How to turn a chess diagram or screenshot into a board you can play

> Upload a diagram from a book, a PDF page or a screenshot and get a board you can play, with Stockfish beside it. Then save the line you played.

Upload a picture of the diagram and let a tool set the position up for you. [Image to board](https://chesslord.app/image-to-chess-board) reads a diagram from a book, a PDF page or a screenshot and gives you the position on a board you can play, with Stockfish next to it. You don’t have to set the pieces up by hand, which often takes longer than the puzzle itself. When you’re done, you can save the position and the moves you tried.

## Can you turn a picture of a chess position into a board?

Yes, as long as the picture is flat: a diagram printed in a book or a magazine, a page from a PDF or an ebook, a screenshot from an app, a stream or a group chat. Chesslord reads where every piece stands and turns it into a FEN, the one line of text chess apps use to describe a position. The board and the engine work from that.

A photo of a real board on a table won’t work, from any angle. Neither will a video or a handwritten scoresheet.

## How do you go from a book diagram to a board?

### Take the picture

Scan the page, export it from the PDF, or take a screenshot. Crop it close to the diagram if you can.

### Upload it

Open Image to board, upload the image and wait while it reads the board.

### Check the position

Compare the board with your picture before you start. If a piece is wrong, try a sharper scan or a tighter crop and upload again.

### Say whose move it is

A diagram doesn’t always say who is to move. Set White or Black under To move, and flip the board if you want to see it from the other side.

### Play it out

Make the move the book gives, or your own, and turn the engine on to see what Stockfish thinks. Keep going until you see why the position wins or holds.

## Can you save the position and the moves you played?

Yes. Save recognition stores the position and the line you played under a name you choose, such as the chapter and page number. Your saved positions sit in one list, each with the number of moves in it, and you can open, rename or delete any of them.

Each saved position keeps one line. If you play something different and save again, the new line replaces the old one. Before it does, the board tells you how many moves each line has, so you don’t lose one by accident.

## What makes a picture easy to read?

- A clean, straight-on image, not a photo of your monitor
- The whole board in frame, with as little around it as possible
- Both kings on the board, since a position without them can’t be played
- Enough resolution to tell a bishop from a pawn

Old books with hatched dark squares read fine. The example on the Image to board page is a problem engraved in an old book, read without any touching up.

## What if it gets a square wrong?

Upload a better image. There is no per-square repair, so upload a sharper scan, a tighter crop or a proper screenshot instead. If you have already played some moves, the board tells you how many you’ll lose before you go back to the upload.

## Do I need an account?

Yes, a free one, because the saved positions live in your account. You can try the board on a real book diagram on the Image to board page before you sign up.

If you already have the FEN or the PGN, you don’t need a picture: paste it into the [analysis board](https://chesslord.app/tools/chess-analysis-board), which is free and needs no account.

How Chesslord helps

[Turn an image into a board](https://chesslord.app/image-to-chess-board)

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