Turn Whiteboard Photos into Meeting Notes and Action Items with n8n and Gemini

Whiteboard photo → Gemini handwriting recognition → structured notes → Sheets archive + Gmail distribution

Who

Teams that need to quickly convert whiteboard handwriting into trackable meeting notes

You get

Submit a whiteboard photo to automatically receive structured notes, decisions, and action items, archived in Google Sheets and emailed to attendees

You need

n8n · gemini · google-sheets · gmail

Steps

1. Submit meeting info via the built-in n8n form

   Use the n8n Form Trigger node to create an internal form with three required fields: Meeting title (text), Attendee emails (text, multiple allowed), and Whiteboard photo (file, accepts .jpg/.jpeg/.png only). No external service is needed. After filling in the fields, click "Create notes". A confirmation message appears: "Thanks! Your notes are being generated and will arrive by email."

2. Gemini reads the whiteboard photo and outputs structured JSON

   The workflow sends the photo into the Basic LLM Chain node "Read Whiteboard with Gemini". This node reads the image binary data in high resolution (binaryImageDataKey: Whiteboard_photo) via the Google Gemini Chat Model (model: models/gemini-3.1-flash-lite, temperature 0.2). A Structured Output Parser enforces JSON output matching this schema: summary (string), decisions (array of strings), action_items (array of objects with task/owner/due), and open_questions (array of strings).

   Execution prompt · Source text。Text parameter of the Read Whiteboard with Gemini node (Basic LLM Chain prompt field)

   Copy prompt

   =You are a meeting scribe. Read the whiteboard photo and turn it into clean notes for the meeting "{{ $json['Meeting title'] }}". Extract a short summary, the decisions that were made, every action item with its owner and due date when written, and any open questions. If the handwriting is unclear, make your best reading and keep it short.

3. Format notes, log to Sheets, and email attendees

   The Code node "Parse Meeting Notes" normalizes the Gemini output into: meetingTitle, attendees, summary, decisions (pipe-joined), openQuestions (pipe-joined), actionItems array, actionCount, and actionText (human-readable list). Then: 1) Log Meeting Notes appends the meeting record to the Meetings tab in Google Sheets; 2) Email Notes to Attendees sends a plain-text email via Gmail with the subject "Meeting notes - {meetingTitle}" and body containing Summary, Decisions, Action items, and Open questions sections.

4. Split action items and write one row per item for tracking

   The If node "Has Action Items" checks whether actionCount is greater than 0. If action items exist, the Split Action Items node splits the actionItems array into individual records, and the Log Action Items node appends each action item as a separate row to the Action Items tab in Google Sheets, enabling filtering and tracking by owner and due date.

5. Request a clearer photo when the whiteboard is unreadable

   If Gemini fails to parse the whiteboard photo (error output from Read Whiteboard with Gemini), the workflow triggers the Email Read Failure node. This node sends a Gmail message to the attendee emails provided in the form, with the subject "Could not read the whiteboard - {meetingTitle}" and the body: "We could not read the uploaded whiteboard photo. Please try again with a clearer, well-lit picture."

   Execution prompt · Source text。Message parameter of the Email Read Failure node

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   We could not read the uploaded whiteboard photo. Please try again with a clearer, well-lit picture.

After importing the template into n8n, complete the following setup: 1) Add credentials for Google Gemini (PaLM) API, Google Sheets OAuth2, and Gmail OAuth2; 2) In the Log Meeting Notes and Log Action Items nodes, select your target Google Sheets document and set the tab names (e.g., Meetings and Action Items); 3) Publish the form node to obtain a shareable URL, then distribute it to your team for post-meeting whiteboard submissions.