Translator online and to take a photo. Note to students. The best applications for recognizing and translating text from photos for Android and iOS. Is it possible to use image translations on a PC?

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:

1. Open the main page of the Yandex.Translator website and move to the section "Picture" by clicking on the corresponding button.



2. Select the language you want to translate from. If it is unknown to you, leave a tick next to the item "Auto-detection".



3. Next, using the same principle, indicate the language in which you want to receive information.



4. Click on the link "Choose File" or drag the image to the specified area.



5. You need to select the picture in the browser and click on the button "Open".



6. Those areas of the picture that the service was able to translate will be marked in yellow.



7. Click on one of them to see the result.



8. If you want to continue working with this text, click on the link "Open in Translator".



9. 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, dubbing, 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:

1. While on the Free Online OCR home page, click on the button "Choose File".



2. In the browser that opens, select the required image and click on "Open".



3. Now you need to select the languages ​​from which recognition will be performed.



4. If you cannot determine the correct option, simply select guesses from the menu that appears.



5. After completing the settings, click on "Upload".



6. If at the previous stage you did not determine the language, do it now, and also rotate the image by the required number of degrees, if required, then click on "OCR".



7. 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.

Yandex has developed a service that can recognize text and translate it from photos and pictures. So far, only this feature is available for 12 languages, but the developers promise a larger number of supported languages ​​in the future. And thanks to Yandex translator, you can translate from an image into 46 languages. Today the service recognizes Russian, English, Portuguese, Czech, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Turkish, German, French, Spanish in images. As the developers say, this translation method will be appropriate when the user wants to translate a note in a magazine with his favorite actor or showman.

The service's algorithm is able to identify text from an image even if it is of poor quality, and also if the image is stretched or scanned, or photographed at an angle. Yandex developed this algorithm independently from scratch. The application translates words, sentences and can even translate an entire paragraph.

How to use Yandex photo translator

Now that the text is recognized by the Yandex.Translator service, you need to click on the “Open in Translator” link. A new page will open in front of you with a window divided into two parts, where the first will contain the language that was presented in the picture. And in the second part there will be a translation into the language that you indicated into which the translation should have been made.

Yandex.Translator window with source text and translation

What to do if the translation quality is not acceptable?

If you receive a translated text where the quality is not acceptable, you cannot understand the text, you need to check it in another way or. To do this, the developers of this application provide additional settings for changing the translation process. For users there is a special option “New translation technology”. If it is not activated, fix it.

New translation technology

The next translation will be done in two ways, using improved technology that uses a neural network for translation and using a static model. Then you can choose the best option yourself or let the program do it.

After this, copy the translated text onto your computer and analyze it, perhaps correct errors in places and bring the sentences into proper form. After all, the translation was carried out by machine, so the text will most likely need to be edited manually.

How does Yandex.Translator recognize text in pictures?

This search is based on optical character recognition technology. Yandex.Translator recognizes text using two technologies: image recognition and a text detection module. The neural network independently learns to identify text using millions of viewed texts in images. Such self-study allows you to achieve high quality translated texts. With each new job, the algorithm performs better and better work, because it identifies and remembers only lines of text that it is 100% sure of.

Next, the work of the recognition module is to separate the lines and determine the formed characters from them. Each character is defined carefully, the algorithm determines them based on what has already been learned. For example, in the Russian language there is a large letter “O”, a small “o” and a number “0” zero. They are very similar to each other. Therefore, the language model then takes over the baton and makes the final decision on which symbol to use in which situations. This model is based on language dictionaries; it remembers not only the correspondence of symbols with them (dictionaries), but also takes into account the context of application, that is, the proximity of symbols in certain uses.

Thus, if a word familiar to the algorithm is formed from the selected probable symbols, then it is able to decide that the word is composed correctly and again takes into account the available symbols from this word. This is how we get the result in Yandex.Translator when translating from a picture online.

Sometimes you need to translate an unfamiliar sign on the street on the fly. Or simply translate the text from the photograph you took. Many translators now have the ability to recognize text directly from a picture and translate it.

I compared free mobile applications that translate text directly from photos.

Google Translator comes first, since it requires the least amount of action - you don’t even need to take a photo, you can just point the camera and see Russian instead of a foreign word. True, this requires the Internet.

Translator	Quality	What is	Address
	★★★★★	Translation of photos and screenshots.	Android
	★★★★☆	Translation of photos and screenshots.	Android
	★★★★☆	Translation of photos and screenshots without the Internet.	Android
	★★★★☆	Translates quickly one word at a time. No internet needed.	Android
	★★★☆☆	Translation of photos and screenshots. Only from English.	Android
	★★☆☆☆	Translation of photos and screenshots.	Android

Google Translate

What a quick camera translation is is most easily explained with the help of a picture:

• Quick camera translation (see picture above).

37 languages ​​are supported (this means translation from photos, but in general much more).

To quickly translate from the camera, internet is required.

Please note that image quality largely depends on your camera, that is, the better the camera, the more likely the image will be recognized. This is true for all translators. Try to take larger photos and in good lighting.

Yandex translate

Characteristics Languages ​​Internet

You can take a photo of the text and translate it.
You can upload an existing photo and translate it.
You can take a screenshot and translate it.

All recognized areas with text are highlighted on their own, you just have to confirm them.

Photo recognition and translation is supported for 12 languages: English, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, French, Chinese and Czech

Needed. You can download a dictionary to translate offline text, but you will still need the Internet to recognize and translate images.

Click on the camera icon to take a photo.

Press the green button to start recognition. Recognized text is highlighted in yellow. T – jump to text.

Microsoft Translator

Characteristics Languages ​​Internet

You can take a photo of the text and translate it.
You can upload an existing photo and translate it.
You can take a screenshot and translate it.

Translates speech in real time.

• Resource-intensive: only the latest versions of Android and older phone models are supported.
• There is no quick camera translation.

Smaller than Google.

Not required.

ABBYY Lingvo dictionaries

By default, a bare translator is installed, and dictionaries are offered to be purchased. But if you look through the set of dictionaries, you will find free ones - for example, a basic set of 11 dictionaries for 7 languages.

Characteristics Languages ​​Internet

There is a quick camera translation, but it is worse than in Google Translator: exactly one word is translated. After pointing the camera, you need to center it on the desired word and touch the screen. After this, the recognition process will begin.

You can take a photo of the text and translate it. But for some reason it translates exactly one word.

You can upload an existing photo and translate it.
You can take a screenshot and translate it.

• The recognition quality is good.
• No internet needed.
• Translates by pressing a finger on a word.

• Translates only one word at a time.

7 languages ​​for free.

Does not require the Internet to recognize and translate words.

Aim the center at the desired word and press your finger. The word will be translated. Please note that there is Live translation (quick from the camera) and Photo translation.

Translator Translate.Ru

Characteristics Languages ​​Internet

You can take a photo of the text and translate it.
You can upload an existing photo and translate it.
You can take a screenshot and translate it.

• You are required to take action for recognition: you need to select the area with the text using a rectangle, otherwise Translate will not even try to recognize it.
• The recognition quality is not very good.
• There is no quick camera translation.
• There is only one language.

Good day everyone!

Probably, almost each of us has come across photographs, pictures, and simply seen posters somewhere in a 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:

1. open one and manually enter the desired text (this option is long, painful and dreary);
2. 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;
3. 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 immediately note that the better the quality of the source photo (picture), the better will be the quality of the recognized text from it, and the translation itself.

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:

1. follow the link provided above;
2. upload your picture with foreign text;
3. specify the language (usually the service determines it automatically. In my case, “Anglican -> Russian”);
4. then just 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 is not translated 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 of English books, magazines, and 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:

1. go to the main page of the site (the address is indicated just above);
2. select the file you want to recognize;
3. indicate two languages: one, which is in the photo (English, for example); the second - which one you want to translate into (Russian).
4. 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 the 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:

1. launch the application and select two languages: the source (which is in the picture) and your native language into which you want to translate;
2. then click on the “camera” icon (see screenshot below, arrow No. 1);
3. 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!).

In general, a good assistant for travel, study and work. You can quickly translate a small text, a postcard, a newspaper article, correspondence with a colleague/friend, etc.

Peculiarities:

1. "live translation": point to a word from the displayed text on the screen - immediately get its translation;
2. photo translation: select a screenshot or photo and get a translation of the words captured on it;
3. 11 dictionaries are available for download to everyone (free of charge!);
4. convenient hints when searching for words;
5. 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);
6. 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!

Well, hello, autumn. Hello, “long-awaited” school year. Until next summer, blissful idleness and sweet entertainment. The time has come to bite into the granite of science.

I dedicate today's review to schoolchildren, students and everyone who is receiving an education. Here are 6 free mobile applications for recognizing and translating text from photos that are most popular among users. These programs will protect your teeth from wearing down too quickly when learning foreign languages ​​and more.

Translate.Ru

Translate.Ru- a product of one of the best developers of automated translation systems PROMT, will not only cope with the text on a photographed page of a textbook or PC monitor, but will also teach the correct pronunciation of foreign words, and will also help you understand what the teacher is talking about.

The application is a complex of three parts: a translator, a dictionary and a phrasebook. It supports 18 popular foreign languages, including Japanese, Finnish, Korean, Portuguese, Hebrew, Turkish, Catalan, Chinese, Arabic, Greek, Dutch and Hindi. Language packs are downloaded according to the user's choice.

To translate text from a picture, just point the camera at it or download it from the gallery. As the experiment showed, Translate.Ru copes with English, French and German inscriptions on photos with a bang, but things are not so good with oriental languages. The program did not recognize the fragment in Chinese at all, but translated individual phrases in Korean.

Other functions of Translate.Ru

• Possibility to select the subject of the translated text, which increases the accuracy of the result.
• Read and translate texts from applications and clipboard.
• Translation of words and phrases spoken into a microphone.
• Dictionary and phrasebook with voice assistant (pronunciation of foreign words).
• “Dialogue” mode – the ability to translate your speech and your interlocutor’s messages into the desired languages ​​in real time.
• Integration with iMessage messenger on iOS devices.
• Storing the 50 most recently translated materials on your phone. Maintaining a list of favorites.

Yandex translate

Mobile Yandex translate uses its own, also very effective algorithms. The quality of translations into Russian from the three main European languages ​​(English, German and French) can be assessed as “good with a plus”; from Asian and others – somewhat lower, but in comparison with many analog programs its level is more than acceptable.

Yandex supports over 90 national languages. Most of them are only available online, but the 3 main ones, as well as Turkish, Italian and Spanish, are pre-loaded into the program and can be used offline. There are 12 languages ​​available in photo translation mode. In addition to those listed above, these are Polish, Chinese, Portuguese, Czech and Ukrainian.

To translate text from an image using Yandex, just point the camera at the image and tap the shutter button. To transfer photos from the gallery, squint at the thumbnail located to the left of the camera shutter button.

The program requires registration. If you use a Yandex mail account on your device, you will be logged in automatically.

Other features of Yandex.Translator

• Translation of web pages, applications (via the context menu in Android 6.0 and later), clipboard contents.
• Saving the history of translated materials, adding to favorites.
• Voice input of translated text.
• Pronunciation of words and phrases in English, Turkish and Russian.
• Automatic language detection.
• Hints for quickly typing foreign words.
• Support for Apple Watch and Android Wear smartwatches: display on the screen the translation of words and entire phrases spoken into the microphone.

Microsoft Translator

Microsoft Translator– a stylishly designed, convenient and functional application capable of accurate and fast translations from 60 national languages. Works online and offline. To use the program offline, the selected language packs will have to be downloaded to the device.

Unlike Yandex, the Microsoft product supports photo translations into all or almost all 60 languages ​​(nothing is said about the limitation). It cannot be said that their quality is always high, but a passage of text in Korean was recognized and translated quite decently, in Chinese - a little worse.

The program can translate captions on images captured on camera and stored in the device’s gallery. To translate text from an external image, touch the camera button and point the lens at the area of ​​interest.

The button for loading photos from the gallery into the program is located in the same section.

Other Microsoft Translator features and functionality

• Simultaneous translation of spoken phrases in online conversations with up to 100 participants.
• Built-in dictionary and phrasebook with transliteration and pronunciation of translated phrases.
• Translation of texts in other programs via the context menu (supported starting from Android 6.0).
• Saving history and maintaining a list of favorites.
• Supports Android Wear and Apple Watch smartwatches - displaying translations of spoken words and phrases on the screen.

Google Translate

Google Translate, perhaps the most famous and popularly loved automatic translation tool. And the record holder for the number of supported language packs - there are as many as 103 of them, and 59 of them are available offline. Photo translation of texts from pictures is possible into 39 languages.

The quality of translations by the Google Translate service is taken as the standard against which competitors are measured. Many texts processed by him require almost no manual corrections, but, unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve an absolute ideal in this matter. By the way, test fragments in Chinese and Korean, photographed from a laptop screen, were recognized quite correctly.

To perform a photo translation in the Google Translate application, tap the camera icon and point it at the desired object. What to do next, I think, is clear without explanation.

Other Google Translate features

• Conversational mode (simultaneous translation from 32 languages).
• Handwritten mode (translation of handwritten text).
• Translation of text data from applications and SMS messages.
• Phrasebook (empty, to be filled in by the user).
• Voice input and voicing of translated phrases.

Translator Foto – Voice, Text & File Scanner

Application Translator Foto – Voice, Text & File Scanner Although it has a smaller set of functions, it works no worse than its competitors. On the contrary, it is even better than many, since, like Google Translate, it supports more than 100 languages.

Translating text from photos is the main function of the program. To use it, touch the button with the image of the camera, select the source - gallery or new photo. Selecting the second option will launch the Camera app. After taking the photo, the photo of the text you want to translate will be loaded into the program. To launch the translator, tap the button in the lower right corner of the photo.

Translator Foto recognizes the languages ​​of printed text in pictures quite well and translates them into Russian quite well. The accuracy of the results is almost at the same level as that of Microsoft and Yandex products.

Other features of Translator Foto – Voice, Text & File Scanner

• Recognition and translation of spoken phrases.
• Translation of copied or manually entered text.
• Voiceover of translated phrases.
• Saving in another program or sending to another user the typed (copied) text along with the translation.
• Saving history and favorites list.

TextGrabber

TextGrabber came from the pen of the leading developer of software products in the field of linguistics - ABBYY. It may be inferior to Google Translate as a translator, but it probably has no equal in terms of accuracy in recognizing printed lines in images. When the program is connected to the Internet, more than 100 foreign languages ​​are available for translations; in offline mode – 10. Text recognition is carried out in more than 60 languages.

The program recognizes and translates printed inscriptions on images in photo and video modes. The first mode is convenient when the picture is small and fits completely on the screen of a mobile device. The second is indispensable when recognizing texts on large surfaces, for example, on the pages of books or a computer monitor.

TextGrabber works quickly and clearly, but it is too intrusive in asking you to subscribe to the paid version. Although this is his only noticed flaw.

Other features and functionality of TextGrabber

• Recognition and translation of texts from pictures in the gallery (like competitors).
• Built-in editor for manual corrections.
• Creating notes (only 3 notes are available in the free version).
• Clickability of links, addresses, phone numbers in recognized and translated text.
• Transfer text data to other applications, automatically copy to the clipboard.

Happy translation!