My professor uploaded a 30-page scanned PDF of old textbook chapters in German, and I need to translate it into English before my exam on Thursday. Since the pages are just scanned images, I cannot even highlight the text to copy and paste it anywhere. Can anyone recommend a free tool for Mac that will actually recognize and translate the text from these lecture notes?
That is annoying, especially with an exam deadline. I’d run OCR first in Preview’s Live Text if your macOS supports it, or upload the PDF to Google Drive and open it with Google Docs to get selectable text. Then translate the extracted text in chunks with DeepL or Google Translate, and check technical terms against the original rather than trusting a full automatic translation.
Had the same issue with some old scanned job reports last month. I uploaded the PDF to Google Drive and opened it in Google Docs, which turned the pictures into actual text I could work with. Then I used the translate option in Docs to get it into English. Not sure how accurate it is with German textbooks but it was free and did the job on my Mac.
I’d start with what’s already on your Mac: open the PDF in Preview, then use Live Text to select the German text and copy it into Google Translate. It won’t do all 30 pages at once, but page by page works. If Live Text struggles, try the same in Notes.
That sounds stressful with your exam so close. Since the file is just scanned images, you need a programme that reads the text first. I use pdfcap.com for my site contracts when clients send over bad scans. You simply upload the file, and it will recognise the German text and translate it. Are you using a Mac laptop or an iPad for your revision?
@henry2010 You’re right that the reading step has to come first, nothing translates until the scan becomes real text. I’d test two or three pages before doing all 30, since old textbook scans can be faint and garble easy. One thing to avoid: trusting the machine translation for exam terms, I learned that the hard way helping a patron with a German recipe book. Double check the key vocab.
google translate has a camera feature that does exactly this, just snap a photo of each page and it translates on the spot. if your mac is on monterey or newer, you can also use live text to copy the german text out first, then paste it into the built in translate app. for 30 pages the phone route is probably faster than retyping anything.
Run it through OCR first so it turns into real text, then translate. Keep a backup copy of the original scan before you touch anything.
Adobe Acrobat has an OCR option on Mac, or you can try a free online OCR tool, then paste the text into Google Translate.