You can use your phone’s camera to translate text in the Translate app. For example, you can use your camera to translate signs or handwritten notes.
Translate text in photos
In the Translate app, you can translate text from images on your phone. For some languages, you can also translate text you find through your camera.
Important: Translations of small, badly lit, or stylized text may not be accurate.- On your iPhone or iPad, open the Translate app
.
- Beneath the text box, tap Camera
.
- You can choose to translate text from an image on your phone, or from text you find through your camera.
- To translate text from an image on your phone: At the bottom right, tap Import
.
- To translate what you find through your camera: Point your camera at the text you want to translate. At the bottom center, tap Shutter Button
.
- To translate text from an image on your phone: At the bottom right, tap Import
- At the top, select the languages you want to translate to and from.
- If you want the app to detect the language automatically, tap Detect language.
Work with translated text
Once the text in the image is translated, at the bottom of the screen, you can copy the text, have it read aloud, or send it to Translate Home.
- Click
to select text and access the options below.
- Once the text is selected, you can choose from the following options:
- To copy text: Tap Copy Text
.
- To listen to the translation: Tap Listen
.
- You can adjust the camera sound with the controls on your device.
- To send the text to Translate Home: Tap Send to Translate Home
.
- If you send the text to Translate Home, you can continue to edit the text as you like.
- To find search results: Click
, or swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
Get the best results
To get the best translation results for your photos:
- Check that the “Translate from” and “Translate to” languages are correct.
- Use a strong network connection.
- In low light, at the top left tap Camera Flash
.
- Use clear and commonly used fonts for best results.
Send feedback
To send feedback, at the top right, tap More
Send Feedback.
You can translate these source languages into any of the languages supported by Google Translate.
Afrikaans |
Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer Kinyarwanda Korean Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kyrgyz Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Maori Marathi Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali Norwegian Odia (Oriya) Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Samoan Scots Gaelic |
Serbian Sesotho Shona Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Tatar Telugu Thai Turkish Turkmen Ukrainian Urdu Uyghur Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Zulu |