Sup. I just found out about this useful translation tool and thought collectors on this board might find it helpful.
It might be old news to some of you . . . . personally I was aware of OCR text recognition software but had no idea
it worked so well and for multiple languages.
Normally the only way to use Google Translate is with live text copied and pasted. It doesn't work for scans or photos of text.
Using Adobe Acrobat Pro (not viewer) you can make live Japanese text using images. Its very simple.
I've done a few trials and it does only work if the text you have is on a fairly plain background so the software knows
what its aiming at . . . it doesn't have to be perfect but it needs to be fairly clear and uncluttered.
Here is an example of one i tried. I took a photo of a sticker with text on it and cropped it to only the text.
As you can see the image is a bit mucky but not bad legibility . . .
Opened in Adobe Acrobat Pro . . .
Go to Document / OCR Text Recognition . . .
In the recognize text window click on edit and select Japanese and click OK . . .
The software should do its thing and then you can select and copy on the image as if it was live text . . .
Then paste the live text into Google Translate and job done . . . perfect for learning what is written on old header cards or whatever . . . .
