Hi I've just bought a Kubota XB-1 Bul Ace compact tractor. Cool machine, not sold in USA or Canada, but popular in Asia and Eastern Europe I think. I'm desperately seeking an Operator's Manual for this tractor. Preferably in English, but a European language would be second choice. So far I can only find an online version in Japanese.
XB-1 Manual
- Thread starter Alan K
- Start date
Any idea what the North American designation might be? European designation?
In any case good luck in your search. I see you are in Portugal. So the European manual is what you are looking for I suppose...
In any case good luck in your search. I see you are in Portugal. So the European manual is what you are looking for I suppose...
HI Henro. I don't think my tractor was sold in North America, under any designation. It never appears on any sites or lists for Kubota manuals. Sigh. If only I could read Japanese.
Have you tried using Google Translate?
I know on my Apple devices I can copy Japanese text from images, and past it into google translate, and get a translation into English that is pretty good.
I mean even from photographs. Just stumbled on this on my own...probably something that everybody knows...just a thought.
Of course it might be time consuming with a work shop manual or operators manual...but if no option...might be worth it.
Don't know if this works with PC's. I use PC's also, but never needed to try it with a PC.
Cool idea, but the manual I have is a .pdf ... and it's a lot of Japanese text. Yes the photos a bit helpful, but a bit frustrating without the text ... I'm going to keep my focus on finding a different manual, for now. thanks
out of curiosity, I copied some text from a PDF manual for a Kubota tractor, and used Google Translate to translated from English into Japanese. I don’t have a Japanese manual or I would’ve done the reverse.
Anyway I’m going to attach a screenshot of the translation to give you an idea of what you can do.
so if you have a PDF Kubota workshop manual in Japanese, you certainly can do the reverse.
edit: the text for numbers six through nine is shown, but for some reason the numbers are missing. Not sure why that is… But the message is still there
Just a FYI.
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for reference, the following screenshot shows the English page. I just copied the text below the image shown in the box.
I think you missed one important point I was trying to make initially.
With my Apple devices, mainly my iPad and my iphone (I’m not sure about the laptop), I’m able to copy the text from a photograph, or a screenshot, or the PDF image that’s on my screen. So it’s not the normal copy paste function like I would use on a PC or even on the Apple product where you select text and then select copy or cut or whatever. I select the text using my finger and then I’m giving the option to copy it.
I’m sure these details are of no interest to many reading this thread, but I’m going into this detail in case it might work for you. Interesting thing is that technique doesn’t work in the normal way a copy paste does.
For example if I’m viewing something here at OTT. In this thread, if I want to copy something, I’m given the normal options select, select all, cut and so on. I do not get those options with a PDF file, but I’m still able to select text and copy text using my finger. And it works the same way with a photograph.
This even works pretty well with handwritten text. For example, I took a picture of something written by hand in Japanese, and then I was able to copy the text off of the picture and run it through Google Translate and it worked pretty well. But perhaps the writer had fairly good handwriting ability. But it didn’t look like printing, it looked like handwriting.
This is something I happened to stumble on somehow. I don’t know if it’s something that’s commonly done by people with Apple products or not. But it amazes me to be able to do it. At times I found it very useful over the last year (or two?) since I discovered it’s possible to do this.
Hope this may help you…of course if you don’t have an iPad or iPhone it may not be of any use.
With my Apple devices, mainly my iPad and my iphone (I’m not sure about the laptop), I’m able to copy the text from a photograph, or a screenshot, or the PDF image that’s on my screen. So it’s not the normal copy paste function like I would use on a PC or even on the Apple product where you select text and then select copy or cut or whatever. I select the text using my finger and then I’m giving the option to copy it.
I’m sure these details are of no interest to many reading this thread, but I’m going into this detail in case it might work for you. Interesting thing is that technique doesn’t work in the normal way a copy paste does.
For example if I’m viewing something here at OTT. In this thread, if I want to copy something, I’m given the normal options select, select all, cut and so on. I do not get those options with a PDF file, but I’m still able to select text and copy text using my finger. And it works the same way with a photograph.
This even works pretty well with handwritten text. For example, I took a picture of something written by hand in Japanese, and then I was able to copy the text off of the picture and run it through Google Translate and it worked pretty well. But perhaps the writer had fairly good handwriting ability. But it didn’t look like printing, it looked like handwriting.
This is something I happened to stumble on somehow. I don’t know if it’s something that’s commonly done by people with Apple products or not. But it amazes me to be able to do it. At times I found it very useful over the last year (or two?) since I discovered it’s possible to do this.
Hope this may help you…of course if you don’t have an iPad or iPhone it may not be of any use.
Just a quick followup, because I don't want to be sending you down a rabbit hole.
I got curious this morning, and guess I was looking for a way not to get started doing anything productive at this end, and decided to try downloading from Kubotabooks.com a Japanese language manual, and see if things I described above worked as I expected they would.
Well, sometimes it worked, but other times it would not on the older Ipad i was using. So I tried the same thing with my iPhone 15, and got the same results. Strange.
But if I took a screen shot of the page I was looking at, I was able to copy the text and use google translate to translate it rather well.
Perhaps some PDF files have protection that prevents copying?
My conclusion is that you could still use this procedure, but you might first have to take a screen shot of every page you wanted to translate.
I got curious this morning, and guess I was looking for a way not to get started doing anything productive at this end, and decided to try downloading from Kubotabooks.com a Japanese language manual, and see if things I described above worked as I expected they would.
Well, sometimes it worked, but other times it would not on the older Ipad i was using. So I tried the same thing with my iPhone 15, and got the same results. Strange.
But if I took a screen shot of the page I was looking at, I was able to copy the text and use google translate to translate it rather well.
Perhaps some PDF files have protection that prevents copying?
My conclusion is that you could still use this procedure, but you might first have to take a screen shot of every page you wanted to translate.
Russell King
Well-known member
Equipment
L185F, Modern Ag Competitor 4’ shredder, Rhino tiller, rear dirt scoop
If you use the Translate app on a iPhone, there is a camera button that will automatically translate what the camera is seeing. If you then take the picture you can save it. If you just move the camera view around it translates whatever it is “seeing” so is temporary.
This works well for character based languages like Chinese and Japanese. Even hand written characters work but printed is best.
I assume you can print out that picture if you want to but I haven’t done that.
The translation will need some interpretation since there are not always the same rules for sentence structure.
I assume a similar concept is on other phone brands.
This works well for character based languages like Chinese and Japanese. Even hand written characters work but printed is best.
I assume you can print out that picture if you want to but I haven’t done that.
The translation will need some interpretation since there are not always the same rules for sentence structure.
I assume a similar concept is on other phone brands.
Russell King
Well-known member
Equipment
L185F, Modern Ag Competitor 4’ shredder, Rhino tiller, rear dirt scoop
One other thought would be to see if Kubota has a local internet domain like Kubota dot USA dot com.
Here they have an app that if you register the tractor you can get the manuals (I think)
Here they have an app that if you register the tractor you can get the manuals (I think)
I tried that as I noticed that this morning. But it only showed me a sentence or so, and would not expand to more when I tapped on the text shown...did I miss something? Will not be surprised...with a PC background, I often find Apple procedures to be non intuitive for me...
edit: This time it worked as you said Russell, when I tried it from the screenshot photo I took...
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Russell King
Well-known member
Equipment
L185F, Modern Ag Competitor 4’ shredder, Rhino tiller, rear dirt scoop
Thread drift alert!
I think that sometimes the camera doesn’t see what the screen is showing due to refresh rates on the screen and camera…but I think if you just hold the phone up longer it will generally capture the text to be translated. And you might need to be more stable with the phone.
Thanks Henro. Good info and I will try that. Also still hopingthat someone here will have an idea for a manual. Nice chatting with you.
In one way it is not thread drift, because it is an attempt to help the OP gain what he needs...
I get what you are saying. But when I said screen shot, I did not mean using the camera. I meant taking a screen shot that is done without using a camera at all. It is done internally by the device being used at that moment in time.
I think that is what happens on a PC when you use the prtscn key...if your keyboard has one, or some key combination that has the same effect. With iPad or iPhone, it is a two button combination that does this. Like the off button and a volume button pressed together.
edit: Just to be clear, I have taken photos of handwritten Japanese text, like on a post card or whatever, and it was possible to copy the text off those pictures and run it through google translate.
But I tend for some reason to call them photos, to differentiate in my mind between a photo and a screen shot. Not sure if this is convention or not...other than mine...LOL