Translate a PDF on your computer

What comes out, and what does not

A PDF stores positioned pieces of text, not paragraphs, so Octoolo rebuilds the paragraphs before translating: lines close together become one paragraph, a word split with a hyphen at the end of a line is joined again, larger type becomes a heading, and each PDF page starts a new page in the Word file.

• Kept: the text, its paragraphs, headings and page breaks.
• Not kept: the layout, columns, pictures, tables' grid lines, fonts and colours. The result is a clean document to read and edit, not a copy of the page.
• Scanned PDFs: a scan is pictures of pages, with no text to read. Octoolo says so instead of saving an empty file. Turn the pages into text first with image to text, paste it into Text Studio and translate it there.

Why a Word file

Writing the translation back into the PDF's layout rarely works: translated text is longer or shorter than the original, so it overflows boxes or leaves gaps. A Word file reflows instead, and you can fix a term, add your name or change the layout before you share it. Open it in Word, or in Octoolo's own Documents, which can print it to a PDF again.

If the PDF came from a Word file in the first place, ask for that file and translate it with translate a document: tables, lists and pictures then come through as well.

Contracts, statements and other private PDFs

Online PDF translators upload the whole file to their servers, and many keep it for a while. Bank statements, medical letters, contracts and HR files are exactly the documents that should not travel. Octoolo reads and translates the PDF on your computer, with no connection while it works.

Translation by a small model is a good way to understand a document, not a certified translation. Anything you sign, file or publish needs a check by someone fluent in both languages.