Skip to content

Japanese Image to Text

Get editable Japanese text from a photo, scan or screenshot. The tool opens with Japanese selected, reads kanji, hiragana and katakana in the same line, and works in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.

Add an image with Japanese text

Supports JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, WebP, TIFF, HEIC, HEIF, HEICS

Auto detects the writing system and reads it. For better results, pick the language (up to 3 if the text mixes languages).

Drop a photo, scan or screenshot in Japanese here

or

Max file size: 10MB

More OCR Tools

Convert different image formats to text with our specialized OCR tools

By task

By language

By file type

What to expect with Japanese text

Japanese mixes three scripts in one sentence: kanji for most word stems, hiragana for grammar and endings, and katakana for loanwords and names. One Japanese model covers all three, so you do not need to pick anything else for a normal page.

  • Kanji and kana. Printed horizontal text from websites, apps, PDFs and modern documents reads well. Complex kanji with many strokes need a sharp image; at small sizes they are the first characters to go wrong.
  • Lookalike kana. Small and full size kana (っ and つ, ゃ and や) and the long vowel mark ー next to the dash or the kanji 一 are easy to mix up. Check them when you proofread.
  • Vertical text (tategaki). Not supported. Novels, newspapers and manga are often printed top to bottom in columns, and the Japanese model here reads horizontal lines only. Turning the photo does not help, because the characters then lie on their side.

Furigana (the small reading aids above kanji) are not separated from the main text and can end up as extra characters; crop them out or delete them afterwards. Japanese has no spaces between words, and the tool removes the stray spaces the engine puts between characters.

How to extract Japanese text from an image

Three steps, no account. Japanese is already selected in the language box.

Last updated:

  1. 1

    1. Add the image

    Drop a JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, WebP, TIFF, HEIC, HEIF, HEICS file up to 10 MB, paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V or load it from a link. Crop away anything that is not horizontal text.

  2. 2

    2. Extract the text

    Click Extract text. The image is straightened and cleaned up, then read with the Japanese model on your device. The first run downloads the model once.

  3. 3

    3. Check and copy

    Fix misread characters in the box, then copy the text or download it as .txt or .docx.

Extract Japanese text

Tips for better Japanese results

Before you extract

  • Keep Japanese selected rather than Auto: Auto sees the Han script and may try Chinese first
  • Get close enough that each kanji is clearly readable; small, dense kanji are the main source of errors
  • Crop out vertical columns, furigana and stylised titles before you extract
  • For faded or yellowed print, tick Black and white under the language box and extract again

Mixed text

  • Japanese with English words or model numbers? Click Add a language and pick English
  • You can combine up to 3 languages in one run
  • Text that is mostly English with a few Japanese words reads better with English first and Japanese added
  • Several pages? Multi Image OCR reads up to 20 images in one batch

What people use it for

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Our image to text converter is designed to streamline the process of extracting text from images. However, we understand you might have a few questions. To make the most of this tool, we've compiled some frequently asked questions along with helpful explanations to guide you.

Can it read vertical Japanese text (tategaki)?

No. The Japanese model used here reads horizontal lines only, so novels, newspapers and manga set in top to bottom columns come out scrambled, with characters from different columns mixed into one line. Rotating the image does not fix it. Horizontal text (yokogaki), which most websites, apps and modern documents use, works well.

Can it read manga?

Not reliably. Speech bubbles are usually vertical, the lettering is often stylised and the text sits on top of artwork. A horizontal caption on a plain background has a chance, but expect to retype most of it.

Can it read handwritten Japanese?

Only very neat, print style handwriting has a chance; joined or fast handwriting does not work. The model is trained on printed fonts. See handwritten to text for what helps with handwriting in general.

Is my image uploaded anywhere?

No. The Japanese model is downloaded to your browser and the image is read on your device, so private chats and documents stay with you.

Latest from Our Blog

Tips, guides, and insights on OCR technology

View All Posts

· Guides

Is Image to Text AI? How OCR Reads Your Photos

Is photo to text AI? Yes, a small neural network reads each line. How Tesseract's LSTM works, how it differs from AI chatbots, and what that means for you.

This tool in other languages