Is it free to translate an Ottoman Turkish document?

You can try it free, with no account needed, and signing in gives you a larger daily allowance. Pro and Scholar are there for longer documents and regular use.

Can it read scanned archive pages, handwritten letters and photographs of gravestones?

Yes, upload a scanned PDF or a JPG, PNG or HEIC photo and the text is recognized before translation. Be realistic about what a hand allows: printed nesih and neat rık'a on a clean scan usually come through well; cramped rık'a, faded ink, bleed-through and stacked divani lines give partial readings, and siyakat registers are the hardest case of all because the script drops most of its dots. Results vary a lot from page to page, so use the translation to orient yourself and confirm names, dates and figures against the original, or with a reader trained in Ottoman paleography.

How accurate is it? What is the difference between Fast and Advanced?

Fast gives a quick sense of what a page is about. Advanced runs a frontier model and is the tier to use for Ottoman: it resolves unwritten vowels from context, reads Persian izafet chains and Arabic plurals as the phrases they are, keeps titles and kinship terms straight, and holds one spelling per name across a document. It is still a machine reading of a difficult script. For anything you will cite or rely on, check names, dates and numbers yourself.

Will the translation keep my document's original layout?

The translator produces a translated PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel or EPUB file that aims to preserve the original layout, including tables, columns and headers. Text size, fonts and line breaks may change, so review the result against the original. Register pages and deeds are read as images, so the translated PDF follows the page visually; the rows and columns of a defter are kept where the scan is straight and legible.

Can I use this for a citizenship application, a land claim or a court case?

Not as a certified document. Turkish authorities and courts require a sworn translator (yeminli tercüman) with notarization, and courts elsewhere want a signed accuracy statement, usually from a translator who can read the Ottoman script. Use this to find out what a document says, decide which pages matter and prepare a draft, then have those pages certified.

Can it translate Ottoman into modern Turkish, or write Ottoman from English?

Choose Turkish as the target and you get a modern Turkish rendering that a Turkish reader can use, with Ottoman-era vocabulary given in today's words where needed. That is a translation, not a scholarly transcription, so it will not preserve every original word in Latin letters. English into Ottoman Turkish also works, in the Ottoman script, for short pieces such as mottos, dedications, calligraphy commissions and exercises; treat it as composition that an Ottomanist should check before you engrave or publish it.

What file types can I upload?

PDF, DOCX (Word), PPTX (PowerPoint), XLSX (Excel) and EPUB, plus photographed or scanned documents as JPG, PNG or HEIC. Most Ottoman material arrives as archive scans and phone photos, and those are read visually. Free and Pro accept up to 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar accepts up to 50MB and 1,000,000 characters.

Ottoman Turkish PDF & Document Translator — English ↔ Ottoman Turkish

Translate English to Ottoman Turkish or Ottoman Turkish to English while preserving your document’s layout. Upload your file, choose the target language, and get a natural translation that keeps the meaning of the original.

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See “Keep formatting” in action

Real examples of the “Keep formatting” option: original on the left, translated document on the right. Click either page to enlarge.

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A civil complaint filed in Mexico City, Spanish to English. Caption block, numbered pleadings, the evidence table and the signature block all keep their places. — Original — A civil complaint filed in Mexico City, Spanish to English. Caption block, numbered pleadings, the evidence table and the signature block all keep their places.

An Italian birth certificate, photographed rather than scanned. The framed masthead, the field grid, the marginal annotations and the round seal all hold their positions. — Original — An Italian birth certificate, photographed rather than scanned. The framed masthead, the field grid, the marginal annotations and the round seal all hold their positions.

A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact. — Original — A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact.

A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact. — Translation — A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact.

A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged. — Original — A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged.

A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged. — Translation — A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged.

A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register. — Original — A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register.

A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register. — Translation — A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register.

A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place. — Original — A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place.

A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place. — Translation — A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place.

How Ottoman Turkish documents come out

Upload a scanned page from an Ottoman population register, a tapu deed, a court record, a ferman, a family letter or a photograph of a gravestone and read it in English, with the page layout kept. Ottoman Turkish (Osmanlıca) is the Turkish of the empire, written in Perso-Arabic script and dense with Arabic and Persian vocabulary, and since the 1928 alphabet change most Turkish speakers cannot read it. Clean printed material usually comes through well, handwriting varies a lot, and you can choose modern Turkish as the target instead of English.

Ottoman Turkish uses the Arabic alphabet plus the Persian letters پ چ ژ گ and a nasal kef (ڭ), written right to left with short vowels normally unwritten, so اون can be on, ön, un or ün and is read from context. What a document looks like depends on who wrote it. Letters and late-Ottoman registers are in rık'a, the quick clerical hand; fermans, berats and other chancery documents are in divani, under a tuğra (the sultan's monogram); financial and land-survey registers are often in siyakat, a compressed, largely undotted accounting script that even trained readers find slow; printed books and newspapers (Turkish-language movable-type printing began in 1729, and Takvim-i Vekayi, the official gazette, in 1831) are set in nesih type; gravestones are carved in ta'lik or sülüs. Numbers are Eastern Arabic digits (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩), or siyakat numerals in some accounts. Dates come in the Hijri calendar, in the Rumi (Julian-based fiscal) calendar from 1840, or both, often with month abbreviations (Ra, Ca, Za) and expressions like gurre (first of the month) and evâhir (last ten days). Modern scholarly editions add a further layer: many are Latin transcriptions with â, î, û, ʿ and ʾ rather than the original script, and those read as ordinary text PDFs. Archive scans have no usable text layer, so we read the page visually.

Translate your document and keep its structure

The translator keeps your file’s structure while translating the text in context. The downloaded format depends on the source file.

PDFs and scanned pages: The translated PDF follows the page visually, with translated pages rendered as images. Selectable PDF text and identical fonts are not guaranteed.
Word documents and PowerPoint presentations: Start with DOCX or PPTX when you have it. Native paragraphs, table text and slide text can stay editable in the corresponding file format. Translated text inside pictures remains image content; review text wrapping and font changes in your editor.
Excel workbooks and EPUB books: Use the original XLSX or unprotected EPUB for a translated workbook or ebook. Review formulas, numbers and text cells in a workbook; check chapter order, navigation and text flow in your ebook reader.

What people translate to and from Ottoman Turkish

Genealogy: population registers and family papers

The Ottoman nüfus defterleri (population registers, kept from the 1830s and extended to whole households later in the century) record a person's name, father's name (veled-i or oğlu), birth year (tevellüdü) in Hijri or Rumi years, household (hane) number and often a physical description, all in a clerk's rık'a. Families from Turkey, the Balkans, Greece, Armenia, Cyprus, the Levant and Iraq upload register pages, nüfus tezkeresi identity papers, court certificates (hüccet) and letters obtained from the Turkish State Archives, from provincial registries or from relatives' drawers. Printed forms and neat clerical hands come through reasonably; cramped or faded handwriting is a starting point for deciphering, not a finished transcription.

Title deeds, endowment deeds and court records

Ottoman tapu senedi (title deeds, still called kushan in Palestine and Jordan) surface in inheritance disputes and land claims across the former empire, alongside vakfiye (endowment deeds) and entries from the şer'iyye sicilleri, the kadı court registers that record sales, estates (tereke), marriages and disputes. These documents run on formulas: boundary descriptions (hudûd), shares written as fractions (hisse), land measured in dönüm, sums in kuruş, para and akçe, and stock phrases that a literal rendering turns into nonsense. Advanced handles the formulaic register far better than Fast. Treat the result as a reading aid; any legal use needs an Ottomanist or a sworn translator to certify the reading.

Fermans, newspapers, books and scholarly editions

Researchers upload chancery documents (fermans and berats in divani under a tuğra), printed Ottoman newspapers and periodicals, salnames (state and provincial yearbooks), literary, religious and legal books set in nesih type, and later Latin-transcribed editions. Printed nesih from a clean scan is the strong case: the type is regular, and the vocabulary, though heavy with Persian izafet chains (devlet-i aliyye) and Arabic broken plurals, is what Advanced reads well. Divani is much harder because of its stacked, elongated lines. Transcribed editions (with â, î, û and ʿ) are usually text PDFs and translate like any modern file. The output is a reading translation, not a substitute for a critical edition.

Gravestones, inscriptions and modern Turkish rendering

Ottoman gravestones follow a pattern: an invocation such as Hüve'l-Bâkî at the top, the deceased's name with father's name and titles (efendi, ağa, hacı, paşa; zevcesi for a wife, kerimesi for a daughter), a Hijri death date, and a closing request for a Fatiha. Photograph the stone straight on in raking light so the relief shows; crisp carved ta'lik and sülüs read better than weathered or painted stones, and results vary. If you read Turkish, choose Turkish as the target: you get a modern Turkish rendering (closer to a sadeleştirme than to a letter-faithful transkripsiyon), so compare it word by word if you need the original wording preserved.

What to watch for in Ottoman Turkish document translation

The traps start with the script. Short vowels are unwritten, so the same letters can spell several Turkish words (كل: kel, gel, gül, kül) and a reader has to pick by context; a scan that drops or shifts a dot confuses ب, ن and ت. Dates are the next problem: Hijri years must not be treated as Gregorian, the Rumi calendar runs on its own count (Julian-based until 1917), month names appear as abbreviations (M, S, Ra, R, Ca, C, B, Ş, N, L, Za, Z), and gurre, selh, evâil and evâhir mark parts of a month, so a translation should carry the date as written and leave conversion to a table you check yourself. Names and places are a third: Balkan, Greek, Armenian and Arabic names were spelled in Ottoman letters without vowels, many towns have since been renamed, and kinship and status words (veled-i, bint-i, zevce, kerime, mahdum, müteveffa, merhum) carry information a careless rendering drops. Add units and money (dönüm, kile, okka; kuruş, para, akçe), titles that are not job descriptions (efendi, ağa, bey, hoca), and the difference between a modern Turkish rendering and a letter-faithful transcription, and the lesson is simple: use Advanced, read the output against the page, and verify every date and name before it goes into a family tree or a legal file.

Ottoman Turkish document translation FAQ

Is it free to translate an Ottoman Turkish document?: You can try it free, with no account needed, and signing in gives you a larger daily allowance. Pro and Scholar are there for longer documents and regular use.
Can it read scanned archive pages, handwritten letters and photographs of gravestones?: Yes, upload a scanned PDF or a JPG, PNG or HEIC photo and the text is recognized before translation. Be realistic about what a hand allows: printed nesih and neat rık'a on a clean scan usually come through well; cramped rık'a, faded ink, bleed-through and stacked divani lines give partial readings, and siyakat registers are the hardest case of all because the script drops most of its dots. Results vary a lot from page to page, so use the translation to orient yourself and confirm names, dates and figures against the original, or with a reader trained in Ottoman paleography.
How accurate is it? What is the difference between Fast and Advanced?: Fast gives a quick sense of what a page is about. Advanced runs a frontier model and is the tier to use for Ottoman: it resolves unwritten vowels from context, reads Persian izafet chains and Arabic plurals as the phrases they are, keeps titles and kinship terms straight, and holds one spelling per name across a document. It is still a machine reading of a difficult script. For anything you will cite or rely on, check names, dates and numbers yourself.
Will the translation keep my document's original layout?: The translator produces a translated PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel or EPUB file that aims to preserve the original layout, including tables, columns and headers. Text size, fonts and line breaks may change, so review the result against the original. Register pages and deeds are read as images, so the translated PDF follows the page visually; the rows and columns of a defter are kept where the scan is straight and legible.
Can I use this for a citizenship application, a land claim or a court case?: Not as a certified document. Turkish authorities and courts require a sworn translator (yeminli tercüman) with notarization, and courts elsewhere want a signed accuracy statement, usually from a translator who can read the Ottoman script. Use this to find out what a document says, decide which pages matter and prepare a draft, then have those pages certified.
Can it translate Ottoman into modern Turkish, or write Ottoman from English?: Choose Turkish as the target and you get a modern Turkish rendering that a Turkish reader can use, with Ottoman-era vocabulary given in today's words where needed. That is a translation, not a scholarly transcription, so it will not preserve every original word in Latin letters. English into Ottoman Turkish also works, in the Ottoman script, for short pieces such as mottos, dedications, calligraphy commissions and exercises; treat it as composition that an Ottomanist should check before you engrave or publish it.
What file types can I upload?: PDF, DOCX (Word), PPTX (PowerPoint), XLSX (Excel) and EPUB, plus photographed or scanned documents as JPG, PNG or HEIC. Most Ottoman material arrives as archive scans and phone photos, and those are read visually. Free and Pro accept up to 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar accepts up to 50MB and 1,000,000 characters.

See “Keep formatting” in action

Real examples of the “Keep formatting” option: original on the left, translated document on the right. Click either page to enlarge.

1 / 6

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