Japanese OCR: image to text
Japanese OCR for screenshots, photos and scans: add the image and get kanji, hiragana and katakana as text you can copy, translate or edit.
Reading kanji, kana and English in one line
A Japanese sentence switches between kanji, hiragana and katakana all the time, and documents add full-width numbers, yen amounts and English product names. The reader used here is PaddleOCR, trained on Japanese and Chinese characters and on English, so a line such as an invoice total or an address with a building name comes out in one piece. Everything runs in your browser.
What reads well
- Printed Japanese from invoices, receipts, letters, manuals and forms.
- Screenshots of websites, games, apps and chats.
- Mixed lines: kanji with kana, full-width and half-width numbers, English names and model numbers.
- Horizontal text. Vertical writing (tategaki), as in novels and newspapers, is not read yet.
For the most accurate Japanese text
- 1Make the text large and sharp: kanji with many strokes need more pixels than Latin letters.
- 2Paste screenshots directly with Ctrl+V instead of photographing a screen.
- 3Crop a screenshot to the part you need: a game dialog or a menu alone reads faster than the whole screen.
Questions about Japanese OCR: image to text
How do I extract Japanese text from an image?+
Add the image or paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V. Japanese is already selected, so click Extract text, then copy the result or download it as TXT or Word.
Does it read kanji, hiragana and katakana?+
Yes, all three, in the same line, along with full-width numbers and symbols such as ¥ and 〒.
Can it read vertical Japanese text?+
Not yet. It reads horizontal lines, which covers most business documents, websites, apps and games. Vertical pages such as novels and manga are not read in order.
Can I translate the result?+
Yes. Copy the text into any translator; line breaks and paragraphs are kept, so long texts stay easy to follow.
Is my image uploaded?+
No. The OCR model downloads once (about 20 MB) and runs in your browser; your images never leave your device.