I need a program to translate documents

[Melita-s]

I use Google Translate add-on in Firefox for web pages. Is there a program I can use to translate documents like.pdf, .txt?

Is there also an alternative to Google Translate?

Thank you

[Joe A.TT]

Well, errr... I think Google Translate is one of the best if not the best. Yes, I don't like Google either but Google Translate is what I use.

When you say "pdf and txt" I not sure what you mean. There are a few translation programs around. One such is QTranslate. In fact, Google is one of the engines which QTranslate uses. I have never used it but I understand there is a 100-character limit.

[Melita-s]

Thank you for helping Joe.

Originally Posted by Joe A.TT

Well, errr... I think Google Translate is one of the best if not the best. Yes, I don't like Google either but Google Translate is what I use.

You knew I don't like Google, without my saying anything to that effect I was hoping there is some program I was not aware of, with which I could replace it.

Originally Posted by Joe A.TT

When you say "pdf and txt" I not sure what you mean.

I often download technical data relating to old vacuum tube equipment that I have (this is my hobby). Some of my equipment were manufactured in countries like Germany, Italy, Japan etc. and the circuit diagrams and service manuals are available only in their languages. They cannot be read on the web page with Google Translate but available for download, often as zip files, from web sites. The files come in .pdf and some other formats as well (last week I got some files in .tif format). It is to translate these to English after downloading, that I was wondering if a program is available.

Kind regards,

[Joe A.TT]

Originally Posted by Melita-s

The files come in .pdf and some other formats as well (last week I got some files in .tif format).

It's possible you may have another problem here. I say so because pdf files can sometimes be pictures of text rather than the actual text itself. If that is the case, you won't be able to highlight and copy text from the pdf. In the case of tif files, they are definitely pictures of text. If it's really important to you, you can use an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program to generate a text file. You should be aware though that OCR is not an exact science and OCR text will have inaccuracies here and there.

[Melita-s]

Yes, the .tif files are photos. They open in photo viewer. This is actually the first time I got this file format. I got them from an organisation in New Zealand. This is not too much of a problem because they are all circuit diagrams. I can make out the text in them from long familiarity with the equivalent technical terms of those languages.

Service Manuals, on the other hand, always come in .pdf format and they all open in Adobe Reader. Because they open in Adobe Reader I am assuming (correctly I hope), that they are genuine .pdf documents. These are the ones I am mainly concerned about. They have detailed instructions (specific for make and model), for calibration, alignment and trouble shooting. This is difficult to manage with the rudimentary method I employ with the circuits.

leaving out .tif, is there anything that I can use for .pdf documents?

Thank you,

[EldonW]

PDF-XChange Viewer is free and it includes OCR. I have succesfully used the OCR feature with PDF documents which are actually images in a 'pdf wrapper'.
Here's a link to download additional languages.
https://www.tracker-software.com/pdf-xchange-viewer-ocr

[Joe A.TT]

Originally Posted by Melita-s

Service Manuals, on the other hand, always come in .pdf format and they all open in Adobe Reader. Because they open in Adobe Reader I am assuming (correctly I hope), that they are genuine .pdf documents.

If you can open them in Adobe Reader, they should be pdf documents. As a test, see if you can highlight and copy text from them. That will immediately tell you whether there is a text layer in the pdf or they are pictures.

And yes, as EldonW suggested, there is an OCR plugin for PDF-XChange Viewer which you can try if you find you are dealing with pictures. I have used it once before and it works okay. If you are going this far, you might want to try PDF-XChange Editor instead. It is the successor to PDF-XChange Viewer. There is a portable version that is stealth too, so you can simply delete it when you are done.

[Anupam]

I think she means that she needs a translation software which will work right inside the program, like Adobe Reader, using which she can translate the content in that document, rather than copying text and pasting in Google Translate.

I think QTranslate suggested by Joe looks like worth a try. Something better than nothing.

[Jojo Yee]

Originally Posted by Melita-s

I use Google Translate add-on in Firefox for web pages. Is there a program I can use to translate documents like.pdf, .txt?

In addition to web pages, Google Translate also allows you to upload a document including a pdf file for translation. It's an online service and not an offline program, unfortunately.

Go to this page https://translate.google.com/ and click 'translate a document' below the box to upload a document, select a language then press the 'translate' button.

This works if a pdf file is text searchable. It doesn't work if it's a scanned pdf containing images of text, which you will need OCR to extract text separately.

I agree with Joe, Google Translate is "one of the best if not the best" and it is still my choice after trying out several others.

[Melita-s]

As always, the best of support here when one really needs it. I couldn't post earlier. I was not able to get down to the business of translating because I was searching the internet for several days, looking for a service manual for one of these things that I acquired recently.

I like to show the results of my translation effort. The pdf files exceed the size limit for file uploads here. What service can I use to send them (store?), for you to have a look. I am clueless about Cloud storage. Never stored files anywhere before this. Please recommend some service.

Thank you,