It's fast and easy to translate a scan using Mate Translate on your Mac. Here's how to go from paper to OCR to translation.
1. Scan your document.
To translate a scanned document, you'll first need to capture the text within it. Your document's file format should be: JPEG, PNG, GIF, or PDF. Apple Notes has a built-in document scanner that captures photos taken on your phone and can convert them to clean PDFs directly in the Notes app.
Snap a photo of your document that's crisp—it should have even lighting and the text should clearly contrast with the background such as black on white.
2. Run it through OCR.
Once scanned, you'll need to run the document through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. There are many paid and free options for converting your document into text. Google Docs is free and extracts text via OCR efficiently.
3. Translate the text.
Once you have freshly-OCR'd text, translation is fast and simple. With Mate Translate open, highlight a portion of text to translate it via popup without leaving the tab you're in. Mate can also open a translation window from your menu bar using ⌥⇧T.
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For more detailed instructions with examples, read the full post.