TRANSLATING A LETTER EASILY

can anyone help me!!

as I am a novice on the computer can anyone

give me some simple instructions to help me translate

a letter that is in spanish to english without having to type

the whole letter out then translate.

can I do this through my scanner/photocopier/printer machine/.

ALL HELP APPRECIATED PLEASE URGENTLY

 Hi,

       Over many years I have tried different programmes for translation.

I know someone out there will 'shoot me down' but I have not found one yet that translates accurately. Depending on the writer it can be gogglelygoop. Also depending on how accurately you want it translated - Is it official or do you just want the gist of it?

The best bet, I have found, is to get a friend or someone you know who reads/speaks Spanish and English and get them to read it to you in the first instance. I know it is difficult if it is personal or confidential.

What I have done and was quite successful was the following - Scan the document onto Word or similar. Highlight it and then Paste it.

Google ' Translation Spanish English'.  Select a service, say Webtranslation.paralink.com - Select translate Spanish English. Copy the pasted document into the top window, press translate - Hey Presto.  You may have to do a paragraph at a time but it works.

I am not at all computer literate, indeed a dummy, but even I managed it.

I have tried to explain it as easy as I can. I am sure someone out there could explain it better.

Good Luck

Hi

try this  go to       www. tradukka.com

this will download a translation programme.

you can then scan your letter into a file on your computer.

copy the letter from the file  highlight it and use edit then copy

paste the copy of the letter to the left hand side of the translation programme

it will automatically detect it is spanish and the english version appears in the right hand pane

it is one of the best translation programmes i have seen.

or you can type the letter into the left hand pane.

good luck

The previous two posts assume that your scanner already has optical character recognition (OCR) software as standard. Mine doesn't. You can download a simple free program such as this one which will enable you to scan the original letter and convert the text into data that you can edit with a word processing program.

You can then follow the steps already suggested. I use Google Translate and find that it usually gives a reasonably intelligible rendition. It certainly helps if you have a basic understanding of Spanish though, and if you at least know the context of the letter it will help you figure out the general meaning. The big problem with online translations is that translating words is one thing, but expecting a machine to know that different language speakers often have totally different ways of expressing themselves, is a step too far (so far!)

thanks for replies but as I said I am a novice so

telling me to scan a letter into a file, paste, copy, hightlight

ect is foreign to me,I do not understand. sorry

should have said I need detailed instructions,

like what keys to press, where to send items to ect

I'm a novice at instruction, but here goes:

We need to know if your scanner has OCR. Can't really help with this, but if you go into the "help" menu when you start your scanner, maybe there's a search facility and you can search for "OCR" and find out. But let's assume you don't have it.

Click on this link to download this simple program. Click where it says "Download Now" - if you see a small bar across the top of the screen saying "...download prevented....." , left click on it and then click where it says "download file" Don't worry, it's safe. (I've just done it, and scanned for virus etc.)

Run the download file (you can save it to a location on your PC if you like but you don't need to); install the program; (I'm hoping this is detailed enough?)

You will see a new icon on your desktop "Free OCR" - open the program. Read the instructions in the right hand panel, then clear them by clicking the little red "x" between the two panels.

Place the Spanish letter on your scanner. Click the "scan" button at top left in FreeOCR. An image of the letter should appear in the left hand panel. Now click on the "OCR" button. A text renderring of the letter should appear in the right hand panel.

You can save this text directly to Word using the Word logo between the two panels, or if you don't have Word or want to save it to a different text editor, click the save button (below the red x) and then choose where and how you want to save it on your PC.

Alternatively, if you just want to translate it straight away without saving it, place your mouse pointer in the right panel, right click on it and choose "select all". The text should now all be highlighted in blue. Right click again, and select "copy".

Now click this link to open Google translate, right click in the panel on the left and select "paste". if Google translate doesn't automatically recognise it as Spanish, you can change the "from" and "to" languages yourself, and your translation should now appear on the right.

Check the scanned text is correct, as some letters may have been wrongly read (an "e" may have been read as a "c" for example) but otherwise, that should be job done.

Let me know if this helps?

Hi Roberto,

thanks for your last post, tried

to follow your instructions but

it is a bit like gobble de gook to me

(told you I was a novice)

anyway giving up and going to ask someone to

translate letter as it will take me till next year.

many thanks.

Roberto,

Thanks for that - I have never had OCR before but freeocr works a treat

Davmunster, you're most welcome, and I'm glad you could follow my instructions - I thought I made them pretty clear & simple. I'm sorry, Formentera, that you couldn't follow them (or was it just the final translation that was gobbledegook?) - I can't really make it any simpler.

I've been using 'freeocr' for some time and find that the output varies a lot depending on the quality of the original document.

Quite often it gets confused over the Spanish accents and punctuation. But at least with an 'electronic' version of the document you can correct these easily.

The typeface can also give rise to strange conversion.

Still, you should not expect perfection from a free product. There are several 'expensive' OCR programs available.

Roberto,

Thank you so much for going to the trouble of posting that. It's great and does catalan too.

I knew there must be an easy way to translate a letter, thanks to you I now have one. A tad odd at times, but it gave me enough to understand it better.

Thanks again.

Febe