ReglyphScan and translate Japanese to English
without flattening the page into plain text
Photograph a Japanese page and the hard part isn't the kanji — it's that the text may run top-to-bottom, and a red hanko sits on top of the words it has to stay clear of.
Reglyph reads the page as it was printed, including columns that run vertically, and rebuilds the English horizontally without moving the seal, the ruled table, or the figure it was pointing at. The hanko is part of the scanned image, so it is never something the translation has to work around.
Scanning Japanese documents — frequently asked
Already have a digital Japanese PDF rather than a scan? Japanese → English document translation
Can I take a photo of a Japanese document and translate it to English?
Yes. A phone photo works, though a document scan is more reliable — the Files app on iPhone and the Google Drive app on Android both save straight to PDF and correct the perspective. Either way you get a translated PDF back rather than text on a camera overlay, which is the difference from a live camera translator: the result is a document you can send on.
Does it handle vertical (縦書き) Japanese?
Yes. Vertical columns are read in the right order and set back as horizontal English, which is what English has to be. Where a page mixes a vertical body with horizontal headings or figure labels, each block is handled in its own direction rather than the whole page being forced one way.
Will the hanko seal and the ruled table survive?
Yes. A hanko is part of the page image, not part of the text, so it is left exactly where it was stamped — including where it overlaps printed characters. The same is true of ruled table lines and figure artwork; only the printed Japanese is removed and replaced.
Scan and translate other languages
Choose your plan
Simple, scan-friendly pricing. Pages are pages — no multiplier for scanned files.
- $0.50 / page
- 10 scanned pages, never expire
- Up to 100 MB per file
- $0.13 / page
- 120 pages every month
- Up to 100 MB per file
- Pages reset each month
- $0.06 / page
- 700 pages every month
- Unused pages roll over (up to 2,100)
- Big files up to 300 MB
Guides on translating scanned documents
File-size caps, silent timeouts, and layouts that fall apart at scale — why large documents defeat most translation tools, and a workflow that holds up.
Read guideActes de naissance with margin annotations, mairie stamps, diplomas from three countries — the practical way to get English versions that authorities will accept.
Read guideGeburtsurkunde, Arbeitszeugnis, a stack of scanned contracts — here's the realistic way to get accurate English versions that still look like the originals.
Read guide