Japanese characters, recognized properly
Kanji, hiragana and katakana are all recognized, along with full-width numbers and punctuation and the Latin letters used for company and product names.
Handwritten Japanese is recognized too, alongside printed text on the same page. Neat block letters come out best; hurried cursive is less reliable.
No language setting needed
You don't pick a language. The OCR detects it on each page, so a folder of Japanese files and English files can go in the same batch.
Japanese business documents often mix in English and romaji. The OCR reads both on the same page without choosing a language.
Searching Japanese text in the result
Japanese has no spaces between words, and PDF search matches any run of characters, so searching for 請求書 finds it wherever it appears. Search for a short, distinctive phrase rather than a whole sentence.
Japanese documents people convert
- Invoices (請求書) and receipts (領収書)
- Contracts (契約書)
- Delivery notes and purchase orders
- Company and government certificates
- Forms filled in by hand
Older and harder documents
Modern horizontal text works well. Vertical text, as in older books and some forms, and very small furigana can be harder, so test a few pages first.
If a file already has a text layer, it is returned unchanged. Tick Force OCR to replace a poor existing text layer; see how Force OCR works.
How to convert
- Create an account. It comes with 10 free pages to try it, valid for 7 days, with no credit card.
- Drop in PDFs, JPGs or PNGs, up to 50 files at a time.
- Most files are ready in 10 to 30 seconds. Download each searchable PDF, or all of them as a ZIP.
After that, monthly plans start at $9 for 250 pages, or you can buy a one-off pack of 250 pages for $14.99 or 1,000 pages for $39.99. Pack pages never expire.
Questions
- Do I need to choose Japanese before uploading?
- No. The language is detected automatically, including on pages that mix Japanese and English.
- Does it read handwritten Japanese?
- Yes. Handwritten Japanese is supported alongside printed text. Neat handwriting gives the best results.
- Will the document look different?
- No. The page image stays the same. OCR adds an invisible text layer on top of it.
- Are my files kept?
- No. Files are deleted automatically within an hour of processing.