PDF File Translation: Preserving Formatting While Ensuring Accuracy

Translating PDF files while preserving their original formats is no child’s play. So, how can large PDF files with images be translated and fully maintained in their original formats at the same time? Feel free to go through the following article to learn more about the existing popular PDF document translation methods and choose the one that works for you.

Types of PDFs you should know to get high quality translation

Brief definition of PDFs

PDF stands for “Portable Document Format”, which means versatile file format. PDF files are commonly used for sharing documents while preserving the original formatting (including elements such as texts, images, graphics, and layouts, etc.).

Common PDF files often requiring translation

Typically, translators often work with the following PDF documents:

1. ● Technical documents: These documents are typically saved as PDF files and contain various process-related texts, technical manuals. In addition, they also include common units of measurement and formulas.
2. ● Healthcare and medical documents​: These documents typically are medical records, treatment guides, scientific studies, and medical articles. They demand high accuracy of terminology in the medical field and are rich in images and illustrations.​
3. ● Academic materials​: These materials include coursebooks, research articles, theses, dissertations or textbooks. They contain multiple charts, images and tables that require further processing post-translation. Furthermore, the text layout is also a factor that should be taken into account.
4. ● Marketing and advertising materials: These materials include publications such as posters, brochures/catalogues, banners, standees etc. When it comes to translating marketing documents, the primary goal is to captivate the audience with compelling wording while also meeting aesthetic requirements, all of which collectively contribute to enhancing the overall effectiveness of advertising and communications.

2 Easy ways for online PDF file translation

Below, you’ll find two PDF file translation options. Take a look and choose the one that best suits your source document.

Free online PDF translation tools

With today’s technological advancements, you can effortlessly handle PDF file translation online. While these tools offer speed and convenience, they do come with their fair share of drawbacks, particularly when handling highly complex documents with stringent confidentiality requirements for sensitive information. Below are some online PDF file translation tools that you can check out for free.

DeepL: This tool provides a decent level of translation quality with a user-friendly and simple-to-use interface. However, the free package of the software only allows partial use of features for up to 3 files per month and does not support translation for files of over 5000 characters. In addition, for uncommon languages, the translation ability of this tool is quite deficient.

Online DocTranslator: This is a tool assisting multilingual translation at a relatively fast speed. The tool’s translation quality is rated higher than that of other free PDF translation tools. However, the interface of the tool is rather daunting for newbies and quite a lot of features are inaccessible.

Google Translate: This is a fairly user-friendly PDF file translation tool that allows you to translate your entire PDF file. However, translation by this tool is quite time-consuming. In case of complex documents, the translation provided by this tool is not of high quality, and inaccurate at some points.

Professional PDF file translation services

In contrast to free PDF file translation tools, which come with a host of limitations, opting for professional PDF file translation services provides a more reliable and comprehensive solution. When precision in content, as well as adherence to native language literacy standards for layout and design, is paramount, professional translation services become the ideal choice.

Opting for professional PDF translation services at Thao & Co., the translation you receive will be guaranteed with the following qualities:

1. ● The content presented most precisely: The formatting of your translation will be fully aligned with that of the original. Furthermore, we provide a professional Desktop Publishing (DTP) service, which ensures that both the content and image layout mirror that of the original document, tailored to the preferences of clients from diverse linguistic backgrounds.
2. ● The compatibility of the translation: The translation of the PDF file upon completion will be suitable to local cultures and language use of native speakers.
3. ● Consistency between the original and the translation​: Both the original and translated versions will maintain perfect alignment in terms of layout and design. Our team of Desktop Publishing (DTP) specialists will meticulously align the format and font to ensure it remains consistent with the original document.
4. ● Document quality: Integrating Desktop Publishing (DTP) with the translation of large PDF documents is a robust strategy that not only guarantees superior translation quality but also ensures impeccable printing quality.

How to translate image-rich PDF files while preserving the formatting?

Generally, the aforementioned free PDF file translation software often falls short in preserving the original layout and image formatting, particularly for files with intricate and complex designs. In order to retain the formatting while translate PDF files with images, you may need to perform DTP for the translation – this is also known as multilingual DTP.

Multilingual desktop publishing (Multilingual DTP) is the process of handling various elements such as texts, images, templates with professional design software such as Photoshop, Illustrator (Ai), InDesign, etc. This comprehensive process ensures that translations are impeccably prepared for printing and publication. Multilingual DTP includes operations such as editing fonts, aligning text and handling elements such as images, charts, and graphs. Our experts will subsequently conduct a meticulous review process to verify the consistency between the translation and the original, ensuring that both are equivalent in terms of content and presentation.

Tips to get high-quality PDF file translation

Translating PDF files while fully maintaining the original formatting involves quite a few steps and can be rather complicated. Selecting translation professionals with care is crucial to ensuring you receive the most comprehensive and accurate PDF file translation possible.

You can check out professional services for PDF document translation at Thao & Co. – a professional translation company with an efficient and flexible workflow. We offer a text and document translation service for wide variety of document formats, especially professional PDF file translation supported with multilingual DTP.

1. ● Experienced team of native linguists
2. ● Transparent process and pricing
3. ● Translation of a wide variety of PDF, InDesign, PSD, TXT, and JSON files etc.
4. ● Professional Marketing translation with DTP
5. ● Fast and accurate ​notarized translation of legal documents
6. ● Translation of complex technical documents with high accuracy and quality
7. ● Our highly secure proprietary platform makes it easy for you to track your projects

Please reach out to us via our website https://thaonco.com to get a high-quality professional translation.