Troubleshooting
How to Translate a PDF
Translate a document while keeping it readable — the options, what happens to the layout, and the privacy question nobody asks.
Translating a PDF is two problems: translating the words, and putting them back on a page where the text is now a different length.
Translate a document
- 1Open the Translate PDF tool and add your file.
- 2Choose the source and target languages.
- 3Translate, and read the result before relying on it.
The layout problem
German runs roughly 30% longer than English; Chinese is considerably shorter. Text that fitted its box no longer does, or leaves a gap. Because a PDF has fixed positions rather than flowing paragraphs, there is no reflow to absorb the difference — something has to overflow, shrink or be truncated.
That is why translated PDFs so often look slightly wrong. It is a property of the format, not a failure of the translation.
What machine translation is good and bad at
| Content | Quality |
|---|---|
| Everyday prose between major languages | Very good |
| Technical documentation | Good, with terminology drift |
| Legal text | Risky — terms of art rarely map cleanly |
| Medical text | Risky, and consequential |
| Marketing copy | Literal; the tone does not survive |
| Tables of figures | The numbers survive; the headings may not |
When it needs a human
Anything with legal effect, anything where a mistranslation carries safety consequences, and anything being published under your name. Machine translation is excellent for understanding a document you received; it is not a substitute for a professional translator on a document you are issuing.
Getting a better result
- OCR scans first — there is nothing to translate in an image.
- Translate section by section for a long document, so you can check as you go.
- Keep the original alongside the translation, and say which is authoritative.
- Have a native speaker review anything published.
- For a document you control, translate the source and re-export rather than translating the PDF.
That last point is the real answer whenever it is available. Translating the Word file and exporting again gives you a properly laid out document instead of a patched one.
Do it now
Translate PDF
Translate PDF content to any language. It runs in this browser tab — your file is not uploaded anywhere.
Open Translate PDFFrequently asked questions
Does translation preserve the layout?+
Approximately. Text length changes and PDF positions are fixed, so overflow and gaps are normal.
Is my document sent to a server?+
Yes — machine translation runs remotely. Consider that before translating confidential material.
Can I translate a scanned PDF?+
Run OCR first, then translate. Recognition errors will propagate into the translation.
Is machine translation good enough for contracts?+
For understanding one, often. For issuing one, no — use a professional translator.