Scan and translate paper documents

[KenB]

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

... expert translators charge between $0.05 to $0.0150 per word translated or approx $40.00 per page or approx $70.00 per hour.

Both Google & Microsoft start to charge for translations after 90 days or $500.00 credit, whichever comes first. After that it is a very small amount.

Obviously, OCR will never be as good as an expert human translator.

The required copier OCR license is not free. It adds approx $10.00 month to the copier lease. You get Scan to MS Word. Excel, PowerPoint and Searchable PDF. Toshiba will soon release V2 of its built in OCR software powered by Abbyy, a world leader in OCR technology.

[Tricky]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

Obviously, OCR will never be as good as an expert human translator.

Sometimes it doesn't even come close, since I work with people from Europe I stuck a label on the works' copier saying something like "don't put stapled copies in the machine" translated into their language. I was told later by several that it was utter gibberish.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

Sometimes it doesn't even come close, since I work with people from Europe I stuck a label on the works' copier saying something like "don't put stapled copies in the machine" translated into their language. I was told later by several that it was utter gibberish.

Do you remember what that language was? I will try that as a test.

[Tricky]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

Do you remember what that language was? I will try that as a test.

It was Polish and with all due respect I think your test will be irrelevant unless you have a native Polish person to read it. When you work with other nationalities, you notice differences in the way that say things, there may even be differences in your French and what's spoken in France. Taking this to more extremes, there is apparently a whole sentence in "Gangnam style" that cannot be translated into English.

Before you get too confident in machine translation, I suggest you watch this.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

It was Polish and with all due respect I think your test will be irrelevant unless you have a native Polish person to read it. When you work with other nationalities, you notice differences in the way that say things, there may even be differences in your French and what's spoken in France. Taking this to more extremes, there is apparently a whole sentence in "Gangnam style" that cannot be translated into English.

Before you get too confident in machine translation, I suggest you watch this.

Not that I know a word of Polish, I checked the translation with Google Translate and Microsoft Translate and it seemed to work correctly.

I was thinking this product would be more of a convenience tool and not a final proof. There will be a need to dial back customer expectations and I only need to support English/French translations of which I have a working knowledge of both.

[Tricky]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

Not that I know a word of Polish, I checked the translation with Google Translate and Microsoft Translate and it seemed to work correctly.

I was thinking this product would be more of a convenience tool and not a final proof. There will be a need to dial back customer expectations and I only need to support English/French translations of which I have a working knowledge of both.

That's actually pretty good, It's come on a long way since I tried it. I wonder how it would cope with a paragraph of legal waffle from a bank statement or car insurance document..

[diedux]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

... I picked random text from English to Lithuanian, translated in approx 15 seconds. For any brand of copier, Amazing!

Google translation (this tool uses it) to Lithuanian is not perfect but this example I would say is 90% accurate. If source language sentences are simple, without clumsy expressions, then a translation is also good. IMO this is a good tool for fast translation to understand the basic idea of the original text. Nothing more, nothing less.
BR.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

That's actually pretty good, It's come on a long way since I tried it. I wonder how it would cope with a paragraph of legal waffle from a bank statement or car insurance document..

I did actually try a page long translation of English to French.

There were many formatting errors.

I rescanned the translated French document using the copier's built in OCR as a a DOCX file, fixed the formatting errors, switched within MS Word to a French spell checker, made the recommended corrections and the final result was pretty good.

My French is not nearly good enough to attempt this from scratch

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

A few more simple translations from Canada and the USA's top 5 most commonly used languages.

While my initial thought was translating from English to some other language, it is just as possible that someone from another language wants to translate their printed page into English.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

A few more simple translations from Canada and the USA's top 5 most commonly used languages.

While my initial thought was translating from English to some other language, it is just as possible that someone from another language wants to translate their printed page into English.

I heard thru the grapevine that Spanish is getting more popular in the USA by the minute ....or truck load. Take you pick.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

I heard thru the grapevine that Spanish is getting more popular in the USA by the minute ....or truck load. Take you pick.

Spanish is the #2 spoken language in the USA by a wide margin for the last several decades.

As more legal and illegal immigrants arrive in the USA, Spanish can only become more popular in the USA.

A copier device in 2021 that can easily scan paper documents into either language, even with less than perfect translation, has to have both value and appeal to a lot of copier buyers.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

Spanish is the #2 spoken language in the USA by a wide margin for the last several decades.

As more legal and illegal immigrants arrive in the USA, Spanish can only become more popular in the USA.

A copier device in 2021 that can easily scan paper documents into either language, even with less than perfect translation, has to have both value and appeal to a lot of copier buyers.

I've been thinking about learning Spanish. No joke.

[Tricky]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

I thought I'd catch Google Translate out with some Shakespeare from the Merchant of Venice

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:

Translated into simplified Chinese and back to English;

The quality of compassion is not tense;
It's like a drizzle falling from the sky
In the place below. It is double
Both blessings and requests are blessed:
'T is the most powerful; it became
The crowned monarch is better than his crown:

Its certainly getting better.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Scan and translate paper documents

I thought I'd catch Google Translate out with some Shakespeare from the Merchant of Venice

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:

Translated into simplified Chinese and back to English;

The quality of compassion is not tense;
It's like a drizzle falling from the sky
In the place below. It is double
Both blessings and requests are blessed:
'T is the most powerful; it became
The crowned monarch is better than his crown:

Its certainly getting better.

Another great test for me to try! Stay tuned.

Your response was helpful. The copier offers two unexplained choices for Chinese translation. Chinese (S) which I now think means "simplified" and Chinese (T) which I now think means "traditional".