Fair typed copy: curing the dim or illegible-page registry objection

The objection list is out, and one line on it reads: "Annexure P-7, page 143 — dim / illegible. Cure and refile."

The original is a carbon copy from 2009, or a fax of a photocopy, or a receipt that was faint the day it was written. No scanner setting will put ink on a page that never had enough. There is a standard cure, and the trade has used it for decades: the fair typed copy — some registries say true typed copy. This page explains what it is, why the midnight retype in chambers usually goes wrong, and how AIC does it.

What the objection actually means

When scrutiny marks a page dim, light, hazy or illegible, the registry is saying one thing: the court cannot be asked to read this. The objection is against the page, not the document — your annexure is pleaded and it belongs in the book; this copy of it simply cannot be read. The same family of objection covers font size too small, a part-cropped scan, and a seal or stamp sitting across the operative words.

Why a re-scan rarely cures it

The instinct at midnight is to scan the page again on a darker setting. But the defect lives in the source. Push the exposure and the grey haze turns black with the text still inside it; lighten it and the faint type disappears altogether. A page that failed scrutiny as a photograph of itself needs to be re-set as type, not photographed again.

The cure: a faithful typed copy, set into the same page

A fair typed copy is the flagged page typed out afresh in standard court typing — a clean 12-point serif, properly spaced — and set into the same page size and the same page number as the page it cures.

That second half is the part chambers get wrong at midnight. If the retyped page runs onto an extra sheet, the pagination of the whole volume shifts — and the registry will not take interpolated numbers as the fix. 31 is just 31; there is no 31A, no 31B. Once the numbering cascades, the index is wrong, the bookmarks are wrong, and every page reference in your draft points somewhere else.

AIC sets the typed copy so the volume's numbering holds: page 143 stays page 143, the index stays true, and nothing downstream moves — at a fraction of what redoing the volume would cost.

Typed faithfully — never guessed

AIC types what is on the page. Where a figure, a date or a name is genuinely unreadable, it is marked plainly, in place, for your eye — never filled in, never inferred. We flag; we never edit.

The copy comes back certification-ready, never certified. You set it against the original, satisfy yourself line by line, and the certificate stays your act — as it must. The clerk, not counsel.

Send just the flagged pages

You don't have to send the whole paperbook. Send the objection list and the flagged pages — or the filed volume, if you'd rather AIC pull them out. Usually minutes — depending on how fast you get back to us — but it can take up to a few hours depending on the size of the filing.

Typed-copy work is priced per page, and you'll know the price before any work begins. Your files are handled the way everything at AIC is handled: read-only, processed on our own machines, deleted on completion.

And if AIC built the paperbook in the first place, the typed copy is set back into the volume with the numbering and bookmarks kept straight — one message, one cured book.

Questions lawyers ask

Will the registry accept the typed copy?

No one should promise you a registry's pen, and AIC won't. What AIC delivers is the cure the trade has always used for a legibility objection: a faithful typed copy in the format the counter expects, set so the volume's numbering holds. The refiling call, as always, stays yours.

What if part of the page truly cannot be read?

Then it is marked as unreadable, exactly where it sits, and the decision on how to treat it is yours. AIC never supplies a missing date, figure or name — a guessed word in a certified copy is a far worse problem than a flagged one.

Does the typed copy replace the original page?

How the two sit together — typed copy alongside the original, or in its place — follows your forum's practice. Tell AIC how your registry takes it, and the copy is set that way. Either way, the page number does not move.

Can you type a whole annexure, not just one page?

Yes. Court-standard typing is also a standalone service — send any document and it comes back as a clean, faithful typed copy, confirmed against the source. You certify.

Filing against a deadline?

Send the objection list and the flagged pages; AIC does the rest.