Translate Selected Text into a Different Language in Word
Posted on July 30, 2010 at 6:10 am
There’s no doubt that Microsoft Word has many, if not too many, features for those who just want to type up some pages in a document. However, sometimes a feature goes overlooked because people use alternative online sources to get work done. Word’s Translate feature is just such as feature.
Services such as Yahoo!’s Babel Fish and Nice Translator are great resources when you need to translate some text either from or into your native language. It turns out that Microsoft’s Translate option found in Word is a competent competitor with these popular free services.
The difference is that you can simply select text from within a Word document and translate to and from twenty-two languages without ever leaving the program.
Using Word’s Translate Feature
Suppose you have some text in a Word document as pictured below and you want to translate it into another language.
Perhaps one of the reasons this feature is so underutilized is because it resides in a strange place on the Word Ribbon. To translate this text into another language, begin by selecting the text and only the text you wish to translate to another language. Click on the Review tab on the Ribbon, locate the section of the Ribbon labeled Proofing, and click on the button titled Translate.
Oddly, Word opens up the Research sidebar menu with the text you want to translate already in the Search For text box. Suppose that you want to translate this phrase into German. Make sure that the From drop down menu is set to English and use the To drop down menu to select German from among the twenty-two languages listed.
Using Microsoft’s Translator, the company’s free online translation application, you can see that Word has translated the text to:
Ich bin ein Experte in Excel.
Under this translation, you have two options. First, you can insert the text directly into Word. However, since you have the original English still selected in your document, the English sentence will be replaced with the German translation if you click the Insert button.
Notice, however, that there is a small arrow on the Insert button. Click the arrow and you’ll notice that you also have the option to copy the text so you can manually insert the German translation anywhere you want in the document. Copying the translation is best if you intend to preserve the original English sentence and provide the translation elsewhere.
As mentioned above, there are twenty-two languages into which and from which you can translate your native or other language. These languages include:
- Arabic
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
The automatic translation feature in Word is useful for two reasons. If you conduct business in multiple countries and need help with a foreign word or two, Word offers a quick and convenient way to learn the meaning of the word so you can move on to more important business.
Students learning a new language in high school or college may find that the translation feature in Word is more convenient than other online applications. The feature is built right into Word; there is no need to minimize the application and visit an online website to do the translation.
The only downside to using Word’s translation feature is that you must have an active Internet connection so Word has access to the Microsoft Translator online application. Without an Internet connection, you can’t use this feature at all.
» Filed Under MS Office Tips
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I’m having to translate some scientific technical papers. Most online translators don’t recognize many of the words (i.e. introns; likelihood ratio). Is there a good technical translator online?