Crow Translate: A software to make life easier (Linux / Windows)

Assalamu Alaikum. It’s been a decade since Epagebd’s journey, and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Epagebd has lost much of its nobility. This is probably the second post on Epagebd this year, coming on the 140th day of 2021. For those who understand English less, we often need to see translations of different words, especially I need it a lot. Now it is very easy to know the meaning of any word or sentence because you no longer have to flip through the pages in the dictionary, it is very easy to find from Google Translate. But sometimes it can be a little annoying, like reading an English text, I have to copy-paste the words instead of tabs one after the other, then I feel the need for something easier.

I used to use a Firefox extension, Simple Translate, which would show a translation button when you select a word and click on it to get the translation without having to switch tabs. But it only works in Firefox, other than that, it can’t be used while reading an ebook in Document Viewer. So I was looking for something that would work system-wise and I typed ‘copy to translate Linux and did a Google search and found a great app in the second result, which is Crow Translate or Kaua Translation. It’s really great open-source software and there’s more to it than just what I was looking for. To translate something you just have to select it and press Ctrl + Alt + E You can even translate from pictures or scanned documents very easily, since it has an OCR feature, you have to add OCR languages ​​first, then Ctrl to OCR Press + Alt + I or Ctrl + Alt + O to translate directly, then select the area and the translation will come. There is also a text to speech feature, basically, you have to select and press Ctrl + Alt + S to read the text, Ctrl + Alt + F to listen to the translation.

And the translations come as popups. If you click somewhere outside, the popup will be hidden, there is no problem minimizing or closing. The app launches by default in the system tray, the main window can be opened by pressing the tray icon or pressing Ctrl + Alt + C. All in all, it seemed like an app to make life easier.

Features:

1. Translations can be done using Google, Yandex or Bing Engine, resulting in translations in 116 languages.
2. Used in open source and cross platform, Linux and Windows.
3. Also useful for command line interfaces.
4. Made using C ++ / Cute (Qt). It is officially said that it takes about 20 MB of RAM in the background, but in my case it takes up about 36.5 MB of RAM at startup, which is more when you use it. There may be OS issues.
5. There is a text to speech feature. . There is OCR feature. . Easy and hassle free, without ads, free.

Install:

Windows users can download .exe and Linux users in .deb / .rpm / .Appimage format from here. And visit their website to install from a Linux terminal.

After installation By default the app is launched in the system tray, you can open the app at the beginning and right-click on the app icon from the tray, and come to the settings and configure it as you like. In my case, I am launching at a startup from General. In the Translate tab, select Primary and Secondary English and Bangla. Later, English text will be translated directly into Bengali and Bengali text into English. There is no problem in selecting the language. OCR requires .traineddata in our respective languages. Download ben.traineddata for Bengali, eng.traineddata for English, or whatever you need from here. Place the .traineddata files in the same folder. Then select the folder as Language path from OCR settings and mark the desired languages. You can also change other settings as needed. There was a problem with me, the text to speech feature was not working. I got the problem using the command line, org.qt-project.qt.mediaplayer missing. The solution is to install libqt5multimedia5-plugins, if Ubuntu is based on the command: sudo apt-get install libqt5multimedia5-plugins. And then working fine. Another thing, the interface but the system depends on the theme. So the screenshots I gave you probably won’t match. The app did not have a separate dark mode option or a theme change option.

Terms of use:

In general, Alt + Ctrl + E shortcut is the most needed, select the text and press this shortcut to get the translation. Take a look at all the shortcuts here. You can also use it from the command line, it works on the Linux terminal, Windows command prompt/power shell can also be done, not sure. The commands are here. And can be used from the main window without shortcuts or command lines.