How to translate Word documents into multiple languages

How to translate Word documents into multiple languages.

When you work with documentation, you may be faced with the need to translate part or all of your Word document into another language. Fortunately, this can be done in a variety of ways.

Word offers a built-in tool that you can use to translate specific portions of text, as well as the entire document, without leaving Microsoft Word.

Alternatively, you can also use Google Docs and various online translators to do the same. Here’s what to do if you need to translate your Word document into different languages.

How to Translate a Microsoft Word Document

There are two different ways to translate a Word document into different languages, depending on whether you only need to translate part of the document or are trying to translate the entire document.

How to translate text fragments

If you only need to translate part of a document, you can do so with the native Word translator.

To access this tool, follow these steps.

Open the document in Microsoft Word.

Select the part of the document you want to translate by highlighting the text.

Choose Browse from the menu.

Select Translate> Translate Selection.

The translator menu will appear on the side. Word will automatically detect the language of the selected text. If Word cannot detect the language correctly, you can manually do so by choosing your preferred language from the From drop-down menu.

Select the language you want to translate the text into from the To drop-down menu. You will see the translated text appear below.

Select Insert to add the translated text to your document.

Word replaces the original text with the translated one. If you are not satisfied with this and want to revert to the original text, select â€œUndoâ€ in the upper left corner of the screen. You can also undo an action with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Z (for Windows) or Cmd + Z (for Mac).

How to translate an entire Word document

If you want to translate an entire document at once, or if you want to translate a document but keep the original, Word has a tool for that. After the translation is complete, Word will open a new document and place the translation there. Then you can save the new translated document manually as another document.

To translate an entire document in Word into another language, follow these steps.

Open your document in Microsoft Word.

Choose Browse from the menu.
Select Translate> Translate Document.

The translator menu will appear on the side. Select the language of the source text and the language you want to translate it into in the From and To sections.
Select Translate.

Word will open the translated text in a new document. To save the translated document, select Save in the upper left corner of the screen. Or choose File> Save As to change the name and location of the document.

Use Online Tools to Translate a Word Document

If you don’t trust Microsoft Word’s built-in translation function, you can try using one of the various online translation tools and see if they give you a more accurate translation.

Translate Word Document in Google Docs

If you want to translate your document online and keep its original formatting, you can do so using Google Docs. While Google Docs and Microsoft Word are word processors that differ in many ways, you can easily use Google Docs to work with your Word documents.

Here’s how to use the Google Docs translation tool to translate a Word document on the web.

Open Google Drive in your browser and select “Create”.

Select “File Download” in the upper left corner of the screen to download the Word document you want to translate.

When the download is complete, select the downloaded document to open it.

When you open a document in Google Docs, choose File> Save as Google Docs. This is required to use the translation tool.

A new Google Docs file will open. From the Google Docs ribbon menu, choose Tools> Translate Document.

Enter a name for the translated document and select the language you want to translate into from the drop-down menu. Then select “Translate”.

You will see that the translated document opens as a new Google Docs document. If you want to revert it back to Word format, choose File> Download> Microsoft Word.

Translate a Word document with an online translator

One easy way to translate a Word document online is to use an online translator. The list of online translators you can use is extensive, most notably Google Translate and Bing Translate.

With both of these translators, you get a number of benefits, including the availability of over a hundred languages â€‹â€‹and the ability to translate documents online and offline on both your smartphone and computer.

Translate Word Document in Google Translate

To translate a Word document into Google Translate, follow these steps.

Open a Word document and select the text you want to translate.
Open the Google Translate website in your browser.
Copy the text you want to translate and paste it into the Google Translate text box on the left side of the screen.
Allow Google Translate to detect or manually select the source language. Then, on the right, select the language you want to translate the text into.

You will see the translated text in the text box on the right side of the screen. Then you can copy and paste it back into your Word document.

Bing Translate Word Document

The web version of Bing Translate is very similar to Google Translate. Thus, you can follow the same instructions to translate a Word document using Bing Translate.

Open a Word document and select the text you want to translate.
Open the Bing Translate website in a browser.
Copy the text you want to translate and paste it into the Bing Translate text box on the left side of the screen.
Like Google Translate, Bing Translate will detect the language of your source text. All that’s left to do is choose the language you want to translate the text into.

The translated text appears in the text box on the right. Then you can copy and paste it back into your Word document.

Quickly Translate Word Docs Into Any Language

Knowledge of Microsoft Word will help you save time and effort when working with documentation. In addition to translating documents into any language with just a few clicks, you can also explore other useful Word tricks, such as viewing documents in full screen mode or hiding text in Word.

What translation tools do you use when working with Word Docs? What other useful Microsoft Word tricks do you know? Share them with us in the comments section below.

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