Guide

How to Use Yomikomi

From zero to reading Japanese manga on your phone — follow these steps.

Set up your dictionary

Go to Dictionary → dictionary management and upload a .db dictionary file (JMdict format) or click on 'Get Recommended Dictionaries'. Select a template like jmdict_en for English, jmdict_ru for Russian, etc. This is required for word lookups.

💡You can find pre-built JMdict .db files compatible with Yomichan/Yomitan.

Create an album

Click "New Album", give it a name, then drag and drop your images — pages from a manga, photos of a book, anything with Japanese text. The app supports up to 500 images per album, sorted by filename.

💡Name your files with leading zeros (page_001.jpg, page_002.jpg) so they sort correctly.

Run OCR on your pages

Click "Process" to run OCR across all pages in batches. By default, PaddleOCR runs entirely in your browser — no images are sent anywhere. For specific regions, use the "Select Area" tool on any page.

💡First run downloads the ONNX model files (~30–60s). After that, OCR is instant and works offline.

Tap words to look them up

Open any processed page in the album viewer. Tap or click on any word in the OCR result to instantly look it up in your loaded dictionary. You'll see readings, meanings, and example usage.

💡The tokenizer (Kuromoji) breaks text into individual words automatically, so you tap single words, not whole sentences.

Save words to favorites

Found a word worth remembering? Hit the star icon to save it to your Favorites page. You can add personal notes to each saved word and search through your collection later.

💡Your favorites are stored in localStorage — they persist across sessions but stay on your device.

Translate with local AI models

Go to Translator and click "Activate Models". The app downloads opus-mt translation models (75–150MB, cached after first load) and runs them locally via WebAssembly.

💡Translation models work offline after the initial download. On iOS, avoid using them on memory-constrained devices.

More features

Add to iPhone Home Screen

In Safari, tap Share → Add to Home Screen. The app opens fullscreen without browser UI, behaving like a native app.

Import Anki decks

Go to Anki Import and upload a .apkg file. The app parses it entirely in the browser using sql.js (SQLite/WASM) — no Anki Desktop required.

Simple Reader for quick text

Paste any Japanese sentence into the Simple Reader for instant word-by-word analysis with dictionary lookups — no images needed.

Server-side OCR (advanced)

For better OCR quality on complex layouts, run the Docker backend (PaddleOCR or YomiToku). Disable Client-side OCR in Settings and point the API to http://localhost:8000.

What it looks like in action

Real examples: book pages with lookup & translation, vertical text, precise area selection

Ready to start extracting Japanese text?

Go to Albums