How to translate a document without losing its formatting

Copying text out of a document, pasting it into a translator and pasting it back is slow, and it destroys formatting: tables collapse, headings lose their styles and images end up in the wrong place. Here's a better approach.

Translate the file, not the text

When the translation happens inside the document, the structure stays intact. With Translate Document:

• Word (.docx) files are translated paragraph by paragraph in place. Styles, tables, headers, footers and images stay exactly where they were.
• PowerPoint (.pptx) presentations keep their slide layouts, and speaker notes are translated too.
• PDFs and text files come back as an editable Word document, page by page, because PDFs aren't designed to be edited.

If you have the original Word or PowerPoint file, always translate that rather than a PDF export.

Why paragraph-level translation reads better

Translating word by word, or line by line, produces stiff and sometimes wrong sentences. Languages reorder words, and the meaning of a word depends on its sentence. Translating whole paragraphs gives the model enough context to produce natural sentences. The trade-off: if a paragraph mixes bold and normal text, the formatting of the first part applies to the whole translated paragraph, so check emphasis afterwards.

Reviewing a translation

• Names, numbers and dates are kept as-is, but check that number formats suit the target language (1,000.50 vs 1.000,50).
• Terminology: make sure product names and technical terms are consistent.
• Tone: formal versus informal address (tu/vous, du/Sie) matters in many languages.
• Legal and official documents should be reviewed by a qualified translator before use.

Scanned documents

If your PDF is a scan, there is no text to translate yet. Run it through OCR first, then translate.