"A tiny photo sheet"
That is close. Each frame on the sheet is a reduced photographic image of a document page.
What does microfiche look like
Microfiche looks like a flat transparent card covered with a grid of tiny page images.
The easiest way to picture microfiche is to imagine a postcard-sized sheet of clear film. Instead of one normal-sized page, it holds many miniature document images arranged in rows and columns. To the naked eye, those images look like tiny dark rectangles, so you need a microfiche reader to enlarge them.
Visual features to notice
- A thin transparent sheet, usually around 4 by 6 inches.
- A title strip or heading area at the top that names the collection.
- A grid of miniaturized pages, frames, or index entries.
- Dark text on a light background, or the reverse, depending on the copy.
How people usually describe it in person
"Like negative film, but flat"
Also close. It often has the same transparent film feel, but it is stored as a sheet instead of a reel.
"A sheet full of unreadable dots"
That is what it looks like until you put it into a reader and enlarge the frames.
Why the appearance matters
If you know what microfiche looks like, you can avoid a common mistake: confusing a fiche collection with microfilm and requesting the wrong machine. That matters in libraries and archives because staff may keep separate readers, cabinets, and retrieval procedures for sheet media versus reels.
Quick test: if the record comes on a flat transparent sheet with many tiny frames, it is probably microfiche.