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HanCam · Free pinyin tool
Chinese OCR: image to text with pinyin
Chinese in a screenshot or a picture that you cannot select? Choose the picture here. The page reads the characters, writes the pinyin above them and lets you copy either. The reading runs in your browser, so the picture stays on your device.
The first reading downloads the reader once: about 10 MB, and about 17 MB more the first time a text is Traditional. Nothing is downloaded before you choose an image. On mobile data you may want to wait for Wi-Fi.
Text with pinyin
The characters and their pinyin appear here.
Your image is read on this device. It is not uploaded and not stored. A line marked with a red bar in the result was hard to read: check it against the picture before you copy.
This tool runs in your browser. Nothing you type or paste is sent to a server.
What it reads well
This page reads Chinese text out of a picture and writes the pinyin above every character. It is made for screenshots and clearly printed text: chat messages, web pages, app screens, e-books, subtitles, slides and scanned pages, in Simplified or Traditional Chinese, on a light or a dark background.
In our test with eleven screenshots, some of them with text as small as 12 pixels, it read 826 of 834 Chinese characters correctly. Text and digits in Latin letters are shown as well, without pinyin.
Photos read well when the text is printed and fills most of the picture: a notice, a label, a book page, a single sign. A menu set in columns or a street full of signs comes out with its lines mixed up, so for those point the camera of the HanCam app at the one line you want. Handwriting and lettering on a curve are mostly missed.
Where it is weak
The reader finds lines of text and reads them one by one. It does not understand the picture. Expect wrong or missing characters in these cases:
- Text printed over a busy picture is the known weak case: characters go missing and stray ones appear. The page marks lines it was unsure of with a red bar, but not every wrong line gets one.
- Handwriting, calligraphy, brush lettering and text set on a curve. The reader is made for printed and on-screen text. On a handwritten menu in our test it missed many characters and invented others.
- Text in columns, such as a menu board, comes out line by line across the columns, with the lines mixed up.
- Rare characters. The small reader used for Simplified text knows about 6,900 characters and replaces any other with one that looks similar. Choose Traditional to use the larger reader, which knows about 18,000 characters and reads Simplified too.
How it works, and what it downloads
The reading happens on your own device. When you choose your first picture, the page downloads a text reader: about 10 MB, and about 17 MB more the first time it meets Traditional characters. Your browser keeps these files, so later pictures need no download. The picture itself is processed inside the browser tab. It is not uploaded and not stored.
The pinyin comes from the same converter as the Chinese to pinyin tool on this site. It chooses readings from the context and is right most of the time, but a character with more than one reading can come out wrong, and a character that was misread gets the pinyin of the wrong character.
The reader is built on the PP-OCR models of PaddleOCR (Apache License 2.0), run by ONNX Runtime Web (MIT License). Sources and licences
Chinese in front of you: use the camera
This page needs a picture file. For a sign, a menu or a page in front of you, HanCam reads Chinese straight from the camera of your iPhone or iPad and shows the characters with pinyin and tone marks, and the meaning. It reads a photo from your library too. The meaning is in your phone's language where Apple's on-device translation offers it, and in English otherwise.
Read Chinese you cannot copy: signs, menus, books and screenshots.
Free: reading is unlimited, copying 10 times a day. One-time Premium purchase, no subscription. iPhone and iPad, iOS 18 or later.
Questions and answers
Is my picture uploaded?
No. The reader runs in your browser. The page fetches the reader's own files from this site and nothing else. Your picture stays in the browser tab and is gone when you close it or choose another one.
Why does the first picture take longer?
The reader is about 10 MB and is downloaded when you choose your first picture, not before. Your browser keeps it, so the next pictures need no download. Traditional Chinese needs a second, larger file of about 17 MB the first time.
Does it read Traditional Chinese?
Yes. On Automatic the page notices Traditional characters and reads the picture again with the reader made for them. You can also choose Simplified or Traditional yourself. Traditional reads both scripts, a little more slowly.
Which pictures work best?
Screenshots, and pictures in which the text is sharp, evenly lit and not tiny. If a photo reads badly, take it again closer, sharper and straight on.
Can it read handwriting?
No. The reader is made for printed and on-screen text. On handwriting and brush lettering it misses characters and invents others.
Is the pinyin always right?
No. The characters are read first, and a misread character gets the wrong pinyin. For characters that were read correctly the pinyin is chosen from the context and is right most of the time. Check characters that have more than one reading.