Good day everyone!
Probably, almost each of us has come across photos, pictures, and simply seen somewhere posters on foreign language. And almost always, I would like to quickly translate and find out what is written there...
In general, in this case you can go in three ways:
- open one and manually enter the desired text (this option is long, painful and dreary);
- use programs for translating pictures into text (for example, ABBYY Fine Reader), and then copy the resulting text into a translator and find out the result;
- use special applications and services that allow you to perform the operation of translating text from a picture (or photo) automatically (i.e., do what is described in paragraph 2 independently, without your participation).
Actually, this article will be about the third option. I note that in the article I will consider photo translators for both PCs and smartphones.
Note: I’ll note right away that what better quality source photo (picture) - the better the quality of the recognized text from it, and the translation itself will be.
Online services (for PC)
Yandex translate
An excellent translation service from one language to another (it already supports more than 95 languages!). As for recognizing text in a picture, the Yandex service does an excellent job of this task (in no way inferior to the famous Fine Reader program).
In my example, I used a photo of a book page (in English). The steps for translation are quite simple:
- follow the link provided above;
- upload your picture with foreign text;
- specify the language (usually the service determines it automatically. In my case, “Anglican -> Russian”);
- then simply click on the “Open in Translator” link (see screenshot below).
Left: the original text that was in the photo is presented, right is its translation. Of course, machine translation requires some work: you can copy the finished text and transfer it to Word for further development (I note that the quality of the translation also depends on the subject of the text. And since I took fiction- it doesn’t translate very well).
Free Online OCR
Supports formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PDF, DjVu
Unlike Yandex, this service is less picky - it even supports the DjVu format (and it has quite a lot English books, magazines, articles).
In addition, I note that some photos (where rare fonts are used) are recognized by the service much better! And one more thing: the service allows you to use two translation options: using Google technology and using Microsoft Translator. So, if there are pictures or photos that Yandex translator couldn’t handle, try this service!
How to use it:
- go to the main page of the site (the address is indicated just above);
- select the file you want to recognize;
- indicate two languages: one, which is in the photo (English, for example); the second - which one you want to translate into (Russian).
- press the "Upload + OCR" button (that is, upload and recognize the text on the photo).
After some time (depending on the size of the downloaded file), you will see the resulting text and several links above: you can select Google translator, Bing, or simply download the resulting text.
By choosing Bing, I received a translation of my text (the quality is not high, because the work is fiction).
Smartphone applications (Android)
Google Translate
A very decent application for a smartphone that allows you to translate text into 103 languages (I note that it supports 59 languages offline - i.e. no Internet required!)!
The application has a built-in camera translation function in real time: i.e. just point your phone camera at English text- and you will see the text in Russian in the translator window! However, there is also a classic work in the arsenal: this is when a picture is photographed in a foreign language, and then the text is processed and output in Russian (for example).
It's quite simple to use:
- launch the application and select two languages: the source (which is in the picture) and your native language into which you want to translate;
- then click on the “camera” icon (see screenshot below, arrow No. 1);
- then you need to point the camera at the foreign text (note that the application immediately displays the translation). However, if the text is long, I recommend taking a photo of it (see screenshot below, arrow No. 2).
Then click on the “Select All” button and click on the blue arrow. Next you will see your translation of the text. See screenshots below.
In general, everything is done very high quality and convenient. As a rule, almost everyone carries a phone with them, which means you can always quickly translate a poster or photo. I recommend you check it out!
ABBYY Lingvo
Several languages are available for free use: Russian, English, German, French, Spanish.
This smartphone application allows you to translate many sentences, phrases and words without access to the Internet. In total, the application supports three types of translation:
- classic manual input: when you type the desired text yourself;
- from an already taken screenshot, picture or photograph;
- and using your phone camera (in 1 click!).
Generally, good helper for travel, study and work. You can quickly translate a small text, a postcard, a newspaper article, correspondence with a colleague/friend, etc.
Peculiarities:
- "live translation": point to a word from the displayed text on the screen - immediately get its translation;
- photo translation: select a screenshot or photo and get a translation of the words captured on it;
- 11 dictionaries are available for download to anyone (free of charge!);
- convenient hints when searching for words;
- the dictionary contains not only the translation of the word, but also its transcription, grammatical information about it, examples of use (you can also listen to it - very useful for those who learn a foreign language);
- a history of words that you requested earlier is kept (it’s convenient to learn words by rechecking your memory from time to time!).
If you have anything to add, thanks in advance!
That's all, good luck everyone!
Many of us have an endless passion for travel and mostly we have a need to translate from in English into Russian. We want to visit new cities and countries, get acquainted with other cultures, communicate with many new and interesting people. Of all the barriers that prevent us from fully receiving new ones, vivid impressions from travel, the language barrier is one of the most important. Our inability to understand speech that is foreign to us becomes a significant obstacle to communication, which inspires us to search for ways to, if not eliminate, then at least smooth out this deficiency. One of these methods is the use of auxiliary programs that turn our smartphone into a fast and convenient translator of spoken and written speech. IN this material I will look at one of these mobile programs - “Translator from Google”, which allows you not only to perform the usual oral and written translation, but also to translate the text on the photo we have. But first things first.
Google launched its web translation service back in 2006, and a few years later mobile forms of the translator for Android and iOS saw the light. At first, the application was criticized for its rather rigid, “machine” translation text, limited opportunities and unstable functionality. But the constant work carried out by the developers to improve the capabilities of the application, as well as the transfer of the translator engine to “GNTP” (neural machine translation) in 2016, significantly improved its position, and now this tool is not only one of the most popular, but also one of the most reliable.
An important step in the development of the application was Google's purchase of Quest Visual, the developer mobile application“Word Lens”, which allows you to translate any foreign text using the camera. Google first made the mentioned program free, and then included it in the functionality of its translator, who learned not only to translate written and oral speech, but also carry out translation using a mobile phone camera.
How to use Google Translator
The translator's capabilities allow you to use your smartphone's camera to translate text in real time, as well as translate text from a photo you've already taken.
To take advantage of the translator's capabilities, first of all, download it to your gadget (Android or iOS).
After launching, select the language from which the translation will be performed from the top left, and the language into which the translation will be performed on the right.
- To translate using a camera, click on the corresponding camera icon in the program menu on the left.
- Then point your phone camera at the text you need to translate, and you will almost immediately see its translation on the screen of your device.
Visually it looks something like this:
The second option Translating text from a photo involves taking a photograph and then translating the foreign text on it.
You can also translate text from English into Russian (for example) from an image already on your phone. To do this, you need to launch the application, click on the mentioned camera button, and then tap on the picture button to the left of the red bottom button (this will allow you to select a photo from the phone’s memory).
Other features of the translator allow you to use voice translation (a button with a microphone image), as well as text (a button with a snake image).
Is it possible to use image translations on a PC?
The best way to do this on a computer is to use . The version of Google translator on a PC in the form of the popular network service https://translate.google.com/?hl=ru does not allow processing of photographs with further translation of the text on them. Therefore, an alternative option is to use any Android emulator for Windows OS, which allows you to install this application on your computer and subsequently use its capabilities.
- Install one of the popular Android emulators on your PC (for example, Bluestacks 2 or Nox Player).
- Launch the emulator, log in, enter your Google account information.
- Then use the search to find Google Translator and install it.
- After that, find its icon on the emulator desktop, click on it, and use its capabilities on your PC (as far as it is functional).
Alternative solutions are to use a number of stationary programs at the “Screen Translator” level (you select a part of the screen with text, and the translator performs its translation). “Translator”, “Photron Image Translator” and other analogues that allow you to translate text from an existing image into the language we need.
The capabilities of “Photron Image Translator” claim to translate text from an image loaded into the program Conclusion
The capabilities of Google Translator allow us to quickly translate the text we need by simply pointing the camera of our smartphone at such text. Other features of the application include the translation of text on a photo already in the device’s memory, as well as the usual voice and text translation. If you are looking for alternatives to such a translator on a PC, then I recommend trying the stationary alternatives listed above, which in some cases are not inferior to their mobile counterpart.
Technologies do not stand still and what seemed impossible to do yesterday is becoming commonplace today. And now I want to tell you how you can translate text from a picture online for free, spending a small amount of time on it. In this article I will be guided by two online services. The first is Free Online OCR, and the second is Yandex Translator.
Translating text from photos online
The procedure will take place in two stages. First we need to recognize and copy the caption from the image. Here you can resort to Internet resources, for example, OCR Convert, i2OCR, NewOCR, OnlineOcr, FreeOcr, OCRonline. And programs, say, ABBYY FineReader. And then the actual translation will follow.
Before starting work, important points should be emphasized:
- The font in the photo should look distinct and not blend too much with the design.
- The file extension must have the graphic extension PCX, GIF, BMP, JPG, JPEG, PNG, ICO, SVG, TIFF, AI, PSD, RAW, PSP, etc.
- Do not download huge pixel formats.
- Since machine translation is used, the output may not be perfect and may need some work.
Free Online OCR
I want to say right away that this service is more suitable for ordinary pictures, I mean those in which the background, there is no pronounced and multi-element noise behind the inscription; in other words, it is a single color.
Let's say this is an option.
Go to the website, click “Browse” and download required document in order to translate words from a photograph. Yes, I almost forgot, you need to set the recognition language a little lower. In my case, these are “English” and “Russian”.
Now click the “Upload + OCR” button.
In the new window that opens, we see the following - the file that we downloaded, and below is the text from it.
Now what we do is translation. Click on the “Google Translate” link (I showed it in the screenshot above) to get the result.
How to translate text from a picture using Yandex Translator
To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by this opportunity, because I had not previously suspected or even noticed that such a service was available from Yandex, and initially wanted to write about a program that translates text in a foreign language from a photograph.
Follow the link, select the language (if you have trouble choosing? I recommend setting “Auto-detect”), I noted from English to Russian, click on “Select file” and upload the document.
The copied inscription will be shown in a new window. It is important to take into account the fact that text detected by the system will be highlighted in a different color, accordingly, if a word is not marked, then its translation will not be displayed.
That's all. If you know of free utilities and other online resources, write in the comments.
To the post “How to translate text from a picture online” 5 comments
Sometimes users need to translate a caption from a photo. Entering all the text into the translator manually is not always convenient, so you should resort to an alternative option. You can use specialized services that recognize inscriptions on images and translate them. Today we will talk about two such online resources.
Of course, if the quality of the photo is terrible, the text is out of focus, or it’s impossible to even make out some of the details yourself, no website will be able to translate it. However, if you have a high-quality photograph, translation will not be difficult.
Method 1: Yandex.Translator
The well-known company Yandex has long developed its own text translation service. There is a tool that allows you to identify and translate the inscriptions on it through a photo loaded into it. This task is completed in just a few clicks:
- Open the main page of the Yandex.Translator website and move to the section "Picture" by clicking on the corresponding button.
- Select the language you want to translate from. If it is unknown to you, leave a tick next to the item "Auto-detection".
- Next, using the same principle, indicate the language in which you want to receive information.
- Click on the link "Choose File" or drag the image to the specified area.
- You need to select the picture in the browser and click on the button "Open".
- Those areas of the picture that the service was able to translate will be marked in yellow.
- Click on one of them to see the result.
- If you want to continue working with this text, click on the link "Open in Translator".
- The inscription that Yandex.Translator was able to recognize will be displayed on the left, and the resulting result will be shown on the right. Now you can use all the available functions of this service - editing, voice-over, dictionaries and much more.
It took just a few minutes to translate the text from a photo using the online resource in question. As you can see, there is nothing complicated about this and even an inexperienced user can cope with the task.
Method 2: Free Online OCR
The English-language Free Online OCR site works in a similar way to the previous representative, however, its operating principle and some functions are different, so let’s look at it and the translation process in more detail:
- While on home page Free Online OCR, click the button "Choose File".
- In the browser that opens, select the required image and click on "Open".
- Now you need to select the languages from which recognition will be performed.
- If you cannot determine the correct option, simply select guesses from the menu that appears.
- After completing the settings, click on "Upload".
- If at the previous stage you did not determine the language, do it now, and also rotate the image to required amount degrees if required, then click on "OCR".
- The text will appear in the form below; you can translate it using one of the offered services.
This brings our article to its logical conclusion. Today we tried to talk in as much detail as possible about two popular free online services for translating text from pictures. We hope that the information provided was not only interesting, but also useful for you.
In this article I will introduce you to the best online translators according to photo. Knowledge of foreign languages is the key to full use of all opportunities modern world. But many users own it at an initial level, which is enough to spend time online and playing games. At the same time, in the process of studying or working, sometimes it is necessary to translate text, and not just printed text, which can be inserted into an online translator using the commands ctrl+c/ ctrl+v, but depicted in electronic or printed form. This could be documentation in a foreign language, text on photographs, pictures, signs, posters and much more.
Translation from foreign languages
Using programs and services that recognize text from an image, you can first extract what needs to be translated, and then use an online translator. After this, the text must be manually converted to readable form and used where required. The original image must be clear so that free programs do not have difficulties with recognition, since not all users have the opportunity to use paid services that work even with images of poor quality. Developers software We also thought about combining two functions into one, that is, so that the program or service would recognize the text and immediately translate it. Online photo translators for mobile platforms are more common, but there is also an option for desktop computers.
Online photo translator for mobile platforms: Android, iOS, Windows Phone
Google Translate
In the Google Play store, Google Translator is considered the most popular application. So let's put it in the search bar. The following image will appear.
Google Translate The application for translations from English into Russian has the following advantages:
- works with 103 languages of the world;
- supports 59 languages offline (for this you need to download additional dictionaries);
- automatically translates speech (from 32 languages and back);
- translates text at high speed (both copied from any application and photographed).
You can also enter a sentence by hand; Google Translate successfully recognizes and translates handwritten text.
ABBYY Lingvo dictionaries
The application installed on a mobile gadget offers users an excellent opportunity to carry out various translations of texts, including from photographs, screenshots and using a video camera.
Abbyy Lingvo dictionaries work even when the Internet is turned off, which allows you to use them anywhere. In the application you can create your own set of necessary dictionaries (out of 11 freely available and 200 paid ones). Another advantage of the program is its ability to remember new words and add them to the database. When shooting with a video camera, you need to keep it as level as possible and provide good lighting. Otherwise, the application will not even try to perform text recognition.
TextGrabber: OCR Text Recognition + Translator
Unlike the two translators discussed above, this program is paid. Using the camera, take a photograph, TextGrabber: OCR will recognize it and translate it from/to 100 or more languages of the world.
Paid TextGrabber app: OCR The application also works with any printed sources - advertisements, books, documents, etc. After translation, the text can be edited and sent either via SMS and e-mail, or through popular instant messengers installed on a tablet or smartphone. Without purchasing additional packages, the user has the opportunity to use translation from 60 or more languages. To make the application work faster, do not use the auto-language detection function, but select it yourself before starting work. The text is not formatted during the translation process - you will do the arrangement of paragraphs, lists and other details yourself.
Photo Translate
Photo Translate is another online program for processing and recognizing photos. It does not have its own database of languages, so it uses an Internet connection for translation. All functionality is limited only to working with images.
Translator
Translator is a simple name for an application for users of gadgets on the Windows Phone platform. It is a basic online photo translator from Bing. In addition to performing basic functions, it helps users learn the language using the “word of the day” on the main screen. This application differs from other programs in one interesting detail - it writes the translation over the image. If this function interferes (original text written small print or consists of large quantity words), then it can be disabled.
Translation over text iSignTranslate (iOS)
iSignTranslate is a Russian development that you can be proud of. The application was created to translate various banners, signs, and signs using a phone or tablet camera. All you have to do is point the camera at the target, wait a little, and the translation will be placed on top of the captured image. English and Russian are available for free, the rest can be purchased for a fee. The program also does not have its own language base and uses Google, Bing and Yandex translators to translate text from images, so it can only work when connected to the Internet.
Online services for photo translations for desktop computers and laptops
Let's try to make a translation from a photograph on a desktop computer. Before you start, there are several steps you should take:
- make sure that the required image has good clarity, since this determines how well the service recognizes the text;
- make sure that the image is saved in one of the common formats: gif, jpeg, png, bmp and others;
- If possible, check the text for errors to ensure correct machine translation.
After this, you can start working with the online services themselves. For example, let's take Yandex Translator.
Go to Yandex Translator. In the upper left corner of the page you will find the words “Text”, “Site” and “Picture”, by clicking on which you can go to other tabs. We need a “Picture”. We click and this screen appears in front of us.
Selecting a file or dragging a picture Select a file from your hard drive or simply drag it with LMB into the field. The following screen appears with our photo.
Recognized image To the right of the text in the upper corner there is the inscription “Open in translator”. Click on it, and the next page in a new tab splits the screen into two parts. On the left is the text extracted from the image, on the right is the translation. Note! The translation is machine-based and requires mandatory correction.
Text translation The example shows a translation from English into Russian, but you can select any of the supported languages or use their auto-detection function.
Look closely at the right side. At the bottom there is a switch “ New technology translation." By moving it to the active position, you will take advantage of the fact that the translation will be carried out according to a statistical model and using neural networks. A special algorithm will choose best option and will offer it to you. Thanks to this technology, Yandex Translator is able to cope even with low-quality images. This service also has an Android version.
Follow simple requirements for image quality, and using online services for translating text from photographs yourself will not be difficult for you.