Project Naptha – Copy and Translate Text from any Image

One of things I need to do from time to time is copying text from screenshot. On the Mac there is Condense and on the iPhone I use Textgrabber (because the company behind it, ABBYY, really know what they are doing). So I’m all set. But… if YOU want to perform this little circus trick on your own and don’t want to spend a dime then take a look at the (Google Chrome) browser extension “Project Naptha” by Kevin Kwok.

The website works as a live demo and is a joy to browse trough; you can copy and paste each and every text in the images. There are tons of examples, additional details, an animated GIF and lots of background information. Even the chapter about security and privacy is clearly visible in large letters right on the site. It’s honest, open and direct – I like it:

So there is a trade-off that has to happen between privacy and user experience. And I think the default settings strike a delicate balance between having all the functionality made available and respecting user privacy. I’ve heard complaints on both sides (roughly equal in quantity, actually, which is kind of intriguing)— lots of people want high quality transcription to the default, and others want no server communication whatsoever as the default.

Naptha can also read out text to you and you’re can depend on it even if you use that Windows machine at work.