How to translate an Arabic image or document to English

What our Arabic birth certificate test showed

On October 31, 2026, we scanned a fictional birth certificate in the Egyptian civil registry layout, with invented names and numbers, and ran it through the normal upload from Arabic to English with GPT-5.4, the model behind today's Precision tier. Every automated check in our test passed.

ID numbers

The three 14-digit national ID numbers, the serial number and the receipt number all came back digit for digit.

Dates

The date of birth, the registration date and the issue date were exact, and the line giving the birth date in words was translated in full.

Tables

Both tables, the child's details and the parents' details, arrived complete as Word tables with each label next to its value.

Eastern Arabic numerals

Figures printed as ٧, ٢٧٥٨ and ٢٥ came back as 7, 2758 and 25.

Offices

قطاع الأحوال المدنية became Civil Status Sector, and مكتب صحة مصر الجديدة became Heliopolis Health Office.

We tested a scan. A phone photo of the same kind of page may read less well, especially when it is skewed or shot in low light, so use a flat scan or the issuing office's PDF when you have one.

Does OCR keep the right-to-left order?

Yes. Arabic runs from right to left, and a form often puts the label on the right and the value on its left. LoreAI reads the Arabic in its own order and writes the English left to right, so a row such as الرقم القومي followed by a number becomes National ID Number followed by the same number.

Arabic documents often mix scripts on one line, for example Arabic text next to Western digits or a Latin reference code. In the test, the 14-digit IDs were printed in Western digits inside Arabic text, and the digits kept their order.

How Arabic names, nasab and Hijri dates come through

Many Arabic full names are a chain, the person's own name followed by the father's name, the grandfather's name and sometimes a family name. This chain is the nasab. On the test certificate, the child is Karim Ahmed Mahmoud El Sayed and the father is Ahmed Mahmoud El Sayed Abdallah, so the father's line repeats inside the child's name. LoreAI writes each name in English letters in the source order, which keeps that chain readable.

Arabic names have several common English spellings, such as Mohamed and Muhammad. The Word file is editable, so you can match every name to the spelling in the person's passport.

Documents from Saudi Arabia and some other countries give dates in the Hijri calendar, written with AH, sometimes next to the Gregorian date. The test certificate used Gregorian dates only. LoreAI keeps a date's day, month and year as written, so add the Gregorian equivalent yourself if your reader needs it.

How to translate an Arabic photo or PDF with LoreAI

1. Scan the page or take a straight photo. A flat scan reads best. For a photo, lay the page on a table, fill the frame and avoid shadows over the stamps.
2. Upload it. Sign in and upload the JPG, PNG or PDF. Your first document is free, up to 3 pages.
3. Choose English as the target. Leave the source on Auto-detect. Arabic is recognized from the script.
4. Download the Word file. Tables, stamps and footers are translated with the rest of the page, in English reading order.
5. Read it against the original. Compare names, numbers and dates with the Arabic and edit anything you want to change.

Free ways to translate an Arabic picture

Google Translate's Images tab in the browser translates a picture and lets you copy the translated text or download the translated image[1]. Google says accuracy depends on the clarity of the text and recommends clear images with common fonts[1]. For a sign or a message, that is often all you need.

For a certificate or a transcript you have to hand in, a translated picture is hard to edit and hard for a translator to certify. LoreAI returns a Word document with the text and tables as real text.

Arabic documents for USCIS

For USCIS, every document in Arabic comes with a full English translation that the translator certifies as complete and accurate, plus the translator's statement of competence in Arabic and English[2].

LoreAI is not a certified translation service and signs nothing. A translator who reads Arabic reviews the Word file against the original and signs the certification. How to get a certified translation explains the steps, and USCIS translation requirements covers what the statement says.

Questions people ask