<p>I use command line tesseract chi-sim or cuneiform when I need to do that. The picture has to be high enough resolution or you will get a lot of errors.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-09T22:54:17.363Z
2017-12-09T22:54:17.363Z
Pedroski
<p>You can try tencent cloud <a href="https://cloud.tencent.com/product/ocr?lang=en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">link</a> or baidu cloud <a href="https://cloud.baidu.com/product/ocr.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">link</a> if you're able to code a computer program.   And aliyun also host third-party OCR APIs.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-11T04:58:17.480Z
2017-12-11T04:58:17.480Z
Aria Ax
<p>I was intending to try the command-line options mentioned by Pedroski, but I stumbled on <a href="https://www.cisdem.com/resource/best-chinese-ocr-software.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Cisdem PDF Converter OCR</a></p>

<p>Does a better job than Pleco with worse image quality.</p>

<p>And the vendor of Pleco says they have licensed the same engine for their next major upgrade.  Turns out that the one I used before wan't Pleco (though I am not sure what it was).  So I went ahead and bought the Pleco add-on.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-11T22:03:57.693Z
2017-12-18T01:54:13.657Z
2017-12-18T01:54:13.657Z
伟思礼
<p>I used Pleco on iOS to recognize the characters in the table of contents of a book. The font was a simulation of handwriting, so I was quite surprised at better than ninety percent accuracy. Although, irritatingly, it attempted to recognize 汉字 in the Arabic page numbers.</p>

<p>But the OCR feature has disappeared from the app (and I have a philosophical objection to buying a feature I already bought).</p>

<p><a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/18031/meaning-of-text-on-a-picture">Meaning of text on a picture</a> mentions two online tools. One failed miserably, and the other has a long-expired SSL certificate which I am not willing to bypass.</p>

<p>I've seen things saying that Google Translate can do it, but that they have somehow made it only work on Android devices.</p>

<p>For small samples, I just use the iOS handwriting recognition, but I'd like to put sentences from a book into <a href="http://AnkSRS.net" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="spaced repetition tool">Anki</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-12-11T09:17:17.103Z
In pleco There is a button to restore purchases. There is also a developer that does respond to questions!
Ludi
<resources><software>
Decent OCR for Chinese?
# Decent OCR for Chinese?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-12-09)

I used Pleco on iOS to recognize the characters in the table of contents of a book. The font was a simulation of handwriting, so I was quite surprised at better than ninety percent accuracy. Although, irritatingly, it attempted to recognize 汉字 in the Arabic page numbers.

But the OCR feature has disappeared from the app (and I have a philosophical objection to buying a feature I already bought).

[Meaning of text on a picture](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/18031/meaning-of-text-on-a-picture) mentions two online tools. One failed miserably, and the other has a long-expired SSL certificate which I am not willing to bypass.

I've seen things saying that Google Translate can do it, but that they have somehow made it only work on Android devices.

For small samples, I just use the iOS handwriting recognition, but I'd like to put sentences from a book into [Anki](http://AnkSRS.net "spaced repetition tool").

**Tags:** resources, software

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: In pleco There is a button to restore purchases. There is also a developer that does respond to questions!  

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## 3 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2017-12-09. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

I use command line tesseract chi-sim or cuneiform when I need to do that. The picture has to be high enough resolution or you will get a lot of errors.


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### Answer by username_3 on 2017-12-11. Score: 0

You can try tencent cloud [link](https://cloud.tencent.com/product/ocr?lang=en) or baidu cloud [link](https://cloud.baidu.com/product/ocr.html) if you're able to code a computer program. And aliyun also host third-party OCR APIs.


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### Answer by username_0 on 2017-12-11. Score: 0

I was intending to try the command-line options mentioned by username_2, but I stumbled on [Cisdem PDF Converter OCR](https://www.cisdem.com/resource/best-chinese-ocr-software.html)

Does a better job than Pleco with worse image quality.

And the vendor of Pleco says they have licensed the same engine for their next major upgrade. Turns out that the one I used before wan't Pleco (though I am not sure what it was). So I went ahead and bought the Pleco add-on.


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