Dutie

Dutie (讀帖, dútiè, “reading the copybook”) is a phone app that plays historic calligraphy copybooks from National Palace Museum Open Data and Wikimedia Commons.

You don’t have to pinch, zoom and hunt for your place. You see the whole copybook first, then a camera walks you through it one passage at a time, and finally returns to the whole.

1. The whole pieceThe copybook opens on screen so you can take in its overall shape.
2. Passage by passageThe camera moves to each passage in turn and rests there while you read. You can pause, or drag the progress bar.
3. Back to the wholeWhen you finish, the view returns to the whole copybook, and a stone settles into the garden on your phone.

Copybooks are either free or paid. Free ones play right away; paid ones let you preview first and buy only if you like.

Each paid copybook is a one-time purchase: pay once for one copybook. There is no subscription and no account to create. Prices are whatever the App Store or Google Play shows.

Purchases on iOS and Android are separate. On a new phone, sign in with the same store account and tap “Restore Purchases” in the app; see Support.

Images and text come from National Palace Museum Open Data or Wikimedia Commons, under the license shown on each copybook. Dutie crops the images and adds camera movement.

Dutie is not affiliated with or partnered with the National Palace Museum, and the Museum does not endorse this app. Read more in Sources & License.

The app collects no personal data, has no accounts, shows no ads and uses no third-party analytics. Your reading history, garden and settings stay on your phone and disappear when you delete the app.

See the Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use.