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Translating Microsoft Office Documents

 

Smartling supports the translation of Microsoft Office files used within the Microsoft Office suite; Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx, and .docm), Microsoft Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx). If you are integrating with the Smartling platform via API, see Translating Microsoft Office Documents via API.

For information on options for translating spreadsheets, read Translating Spreadsheets. 

Preparing Microsoft Office Files for Translation

It is important to note that Smartling ingests all content for translation in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel files (excluding tab names, which are not ingested for translation). To exclude content from translation, see Exclude Content from Translation and Restore.

For PowerPoint files, Smartling ingests all content in text boxes. By default, this means all text box content on the slides. You can choose to translate content in the Master Slide and/or speaker notes, upon file upload.

Remember, text that is part of an image cannot be captured for translation.

The translated Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Microsoft Excel file will contain the translated content only, as the source content is overwritten.

If you would like the translated Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel file to include the source content as well as the translated content, simply copy the source content in the file, and apply a NOTRANSLATE style to the first copy of the source content. The translations will overwrite the second copy, and you will have both source and translation in one file.

The NOTRANSLATE style is not supported in Microsoft PowerPoint.

Excel: When uploading an Excel file for translation, you will be prompted to confirm if the file is a Microsoft Excel or Smartling Excel file. To learn about the differences and advantages of both, read this article. Alternatively, for more options in file preparation, you can save the Excel as CSV UTF-8 and apply file directives outlined here. The article also outlines how to import your translated CSV back to Excel.

Content Parsing for each Microsoft Office Document

To translate your business documents, Smartling parses the content into strings - a translation unit. Parsing differs depending on the document type.

  • Microsoft Word: Each paragraph is captured as a string. A new paragraph or line break creates a new string. Comments are not ingested for translation.
  • Microsoft Excel: Each cell of the spreadsheet is captured as a string in the Smartling dashboard, including the sheet tab name. Data as a result of a formula is not captured and must be typed into the cell without any formulas. Any formatting such as bold or italics will be delivered in the translated file. Image and video files are also delivered in the translated file, but content within them will not be translated. Numbers are also not captured for translation.
  • Smartling Excel: Each cell of the first column in the first sheet is captured as a string in Smartling, excluding A1 which is a header. The sheet tab name is excluded from translation. Data as a result of a formula is not captured and must be typed into the cell without any formulas. Any formatting such as bold or italics are not delivered in the translated file. Numbers are captured as translatable, without any formatting.
  • PowerPoint: Similar parsing as Microsoft Word. Content in a text box on a PowerPoint slide is captured as a string. A hard return (i.e. a new paragraph) within the text box starts a new string. Text boxes containing several sentences within the same paragraph will be broken up into segments. The strings/segments are arranged in order of when each text box was created, not where it is placed on the slide.

Larger strings may be further divided into segments, only visible in the CAT tool. A segment is usually a sentence, with a sentence-ending punctuation mark such as a period (.), exclamation point (!) or question mark (?) creating a new segment.

Exclude Content using Styles

In Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel files, you can mark strings that you don't want to be translated by using Styles. To do so, simply create a new style called NOTRANSLATE, highlight the text or click the cell you want to exclude, and apply the NOTRANSLATE style to that text/cell. 

The NOTRANSLATE Style works similarly to excluding strings, and is applied on a string-level, and cannot be applied to specific terms within a string. If you need to apply the NOTRANSLATE style to just one term in a string, ensure the term is formatted in its own paragraph/cell.

Creating the NOTRANSLATE Style - Microsoft Word

As of the latest update to this article, the ability to create styles is only available in the desktop version of Microsoft Word. The web based version of Word does not support the creation of new styles for a document.

Create a style with the name NOTRANSLATE (as pictured) and select the style type Paragraph or Character. Other options should be set to match your regular text. 

notranslate.png

Applying the NOTRANSLATE Style - Microsoft Word

To apply the style, highlight the text you want to exclude and select NOTRANSLATE from the style ribbon.

notranslate2.png

Creating the NOTRANSLATE Style - Microsoft Excel

  1. Click the down arrow under Format and select New Cell Style.
    format.png
  2. Untick the Style Property checkboxes and set the Style Name to NOTRANSLATE.
    new_cell_style.png
  3. If you want to visually mark excluded text in your document, click Format, go to the Fill tab, and select a color. Click OK.
    format_cell2.png

For steps on how to save the NOTRANSLATE style, see the Microsoft Office documentation.

Applying the NOTRANSLATE Style - Microsoft Excel

To apply the style, highlight the cells you want to exclude and select NOTRANSLATE from the style ribbon.
highlight_cells.png

The NOTRANSLATE style is not supported in Smartling Excel files.

Steps to Translating Microsoft Office Files

  1. Ensure to create a Files Project for file translation management.
  2. Once you're ready to translate the file, create a Job. All content in the file will be ingested for translation.
    • Excel Files: You will be prompted to confirm if the file is a Microsoft Excel or a Smartling Excel. For more information on the differences and advantages of both, read this article.
  3. To exclude strings, such as the document title or the sheet tab name, from translation via the Smartling dashboard, see Exclude Content from Translation and Restore.
  4. To get an idea of what the layout and display of the translated file will be, you can download a pseudo translated file. From here, you can decide if any adjustments are necessary to the source content. This feature is particular useful when translating PowerPoint files, as reformatting text boxes and slides can be required post-translation.
  5. Translators will see the Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel file displayed as dynamic Visual Context from within the CAT Tool. If you would like to provide Translators with even more Visual Context, upload an image of the content's message. 
  6. You can also provide instructions to provide context. Additionally, attaching a JPG or PDF document for reference can provide context.  The Translators can download the attachment in the CAT Tool.
  7. Furthermore, applying character limits to strings can help ensure translations are kept to a certain length. 
  8. When translations are complete, download the published translations to your locale drive.
    • Microsoft Office files do not support multilingual output, so you can only download one translated locale per file.

Troubleshooting Translated Microsoft Office Files

When viewing and deploying translated Microsoft Office Files, it is important to remember that most fonts do not contain the characters necessary to display content in every language.

When you upload a file to Smartling, only the text of the file is captured and translated. This means that, when you download your translated file, its font may not support all the new characters. These characters will be displayed as empty boxes, sometimes referred to as ‘tofu’.

If you open a translated file, and it’s full of tofu, it doesn’t mean that the file is corrupted. It may just be that your current font can’t display the translation. To view these files, you need to have a font with the required characters.

Choosing an appropriate final font for your translated files is an important design decision, but if you just want to check your translations, a good place to start is with Google’s Noto collection of fonts. Noto fonts are available to support most languages and scripts.

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