While translating text files is quite simple, PDFs can get a bit trickier.
Here, we discuss all the different ways of translating a PDF.
Using Google Translate
Google Translate is one of thebest online translators.
Heres how to translate a PDF using Google Translate.
Go to theGoogle Translate websiteand click onDocuments.
Choose the current language of the file and the one into which you want to translate the file.
If you arent sure about the current language, you’re able to select theDetect Languageoption.
Click onDocumentsand thenBrowse your machine.
Upload the PDF file you want to translate and click onTranslate.
Once Google translates your file, youll view a button to download the translated PDF file.
As one would expect, the translation results are great, with multiple languages supported.
The layout is also retained for the most part.
The Google Translate document translation isnt available on mobile devices.
Similarly, it doesnt support PDF files over 300 pages or 10 MB file size.
Besides PDF, the Google Translate supports .docx, .pptx, .xlsx.
To do so, open theGoogle Drive websiteand find the file you want to translate.
Right-click it, hover the cursor onOpen with, and chooseGoogle Docs.
Youll be redirected to Google Docs, where the PDF will be converted to text.
Then, simply click onToolsand selectTranslate document.
After entering these, chooseTranslate.
A new document will open with the translated file.
This method works nicely if you want to edit the PDF before/after translation.
Aspose Free Online Translation
Aspose has dozens of free online tools on its site.
One of these is anonline document translator.
Using it, you could translate Word and PDF documents online.
To do so, take these actions.
Go to theAspose translation tool website.
pick the languages, upload the file, and selectTranslate.
Wait for the translation to complete and download the translated PDF.
you’ve got the option to also directly upload it to Google Drive/Dropbox or email it.
The language options are a bit limited, but most major languages are included.
Since it limits the file size to 1 MB, Aspose Online Translator works well only for small files.
So here’s how to translate PDFs on mobile.
Using DocTranslator
DocTranslator is also powered by Google Translate and has nearly the same limitations and advantages.
The web-based tool supports over 100 languages and multiple file formats.
The app is free to use, but is available on Android only.
To translate PDFs on your Android equipment using this app, open it and selectFile Translator.
select theplus icon (+)and choose the PDF you want to translate.
Pick the languages you want to translate to and from, and clickTranslate.
Although the tool supports several languages, the layout of the PDF is distorted during translation.
The app has a paid version with unlimited translations, an ad-free experience, and support for more languages.
All these methods work perfectly with native/normal PDFs.
But translating scanned PDFs gets a bit trickier.
Lets have a look at the process.
But Microsoft OneNote’s OCR feature is an excellent, free one.
To extract the text using OneNote, open it, go to theInserttab, and selectFile Printout.
Once the document has been added, right-click it, and selectCopy Text from This Page of the Printout.
Paste the copied text into a new section.
In case OneNote pastes an image instead of text, right-hit the image again and chooseCopy Text from Picture.
Now, pressCTRL + Vto paste the text.
Besides OneNote, you might useConvertio OCRonline to get the text from scanned PDFs.
Repeat the above-mentioned steps to translate your file.
it’s possible for you to do so both on mobile and desktop.
But thanks to OCR and translation technologies, converting PDFs to any other language is a breeze.
However, you might face layout or OCR recognition issues, depending on your document.
Almost all the methods used above are powered by Google Translate, which is an excellent tool.
However, depending on your circumstances, you might want to try an alternative.
