While working for ProZ Pro Bono and participating in the give-and-take that volunteering in a group of like-minded generous professionals entails, someone was confronted with the difficult task of translating tables that had been badly and crookedly scanned or maybe even faxed (does that even still exist nowadays?). I wanted to share the solution I use with you, because it will save you time, but also exasperation and exhaustion…
So, let’s imagine you have a PDF file (or an image file) of a crooked table. Translating it isn’t really the problem, but recreating the table cell by cell will make you crazy.
This is the method I have been using for a few years, and it’s free.
You’ll need a PDF reader, a Microsoft account and IrfanView (freeware, https://www.irfanview.com/, please support if you can).
Open the document in your PDF Reader of choice.
Select the zone with the table/text and copy it or make a screenshot.
Paste the selected area or the screenshot into IrfanView (freeware).
Image> Rotate left/right then Image> Fine rotate the zone to have it aligned so it's as straight as possible.
Save this under a name and folder you'll remember.
Open a blank file in MS Excel on your desktop or in your browser in your Microsoft account.
Clicking on Data > From picture > Picture from File (if you have Excel on your desktop) or Data > Data from Picture (if you’re working within the browser version).
Excel’s AI will scan the table and extrapolate from it.
Check the text for accuracy, import to the blank file, play around with cells and borders until satisfied.
You should now have a table you can translate (into) that you can then export to PDF or paste into a separate file as you need.
Did you know of this method?
Do you use it regularly?
Do you have other little annoying problems we are confronted with as translators that we could solve together?
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