Microsoft Translator now works offline and with your camera

To get started though, users need to download the additional free language packs first, which are available in French, German, Chinese (simplified), Italian, Russian, Polish, Vietnamese, Spanish and Portuguese.

On-the-go translation via mobile app has been catching on as a helpful service for travelers and others.

Microsoft rolled out the update Thursday both on the app’s iOS and Android versions.

Image translation comes in addition to Microsoft Translator’s typed-text and voice translation features, which the app has been supporting since its launch on iOS in August. The Microsoft Translator app earlier got skype integration, and then got multi user realtime support even on wearable devices. Though the image translation feature has just been made available for the iOS app, which was released in 2015, it has actually been present in the Translator apps for Windows and Windows Phone since 2010. This update is all set to help the Microsoft Translator app gain more credibility in the markets.

You can translate text by speaking it, typing it, drawing it with your finger or snapping a photograph.

Note that unlike Google Translate, Microsoft doesn’t (yet) support instant image translation where the translation is already shown in an overlay above the text as soon as the camera is pointed at it. Translator will then dish out the verbal and onscreen translation. In an official blog post the company has declared that the Offline translations are as good as the online ones and the users can be assured that there are no compromises on that front. This has been done via the character recognition features, and has been added for the iOS devices at the moment. Thanks to Microsoft’s Deep Neural Network-powered offline engine, users can use the app even without an Internet connection. The feature could be useful in a foreign location where Internet access is slow, spotty or nonexistent, either through Wi-Fi or cellular.

Apart from Android phones, Microsoft Translator for Android can likewise be downloaded on smartwatches running Android Wear.