Translate text in a different language

You can translate text written in a different language, such as phrases or paragraphs, individual words (by using the Mini Translator), or translate your whole file with Microsoft Office 2010. To translate text from certain languages into other languages, you might also have to satisfy the operating system requirements for specific languages.

Note The Translate command is only available in the following Microsoft Office programs: Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Visio, and Word.

You can also create a document in one language, and then use a machine translation service to translate it to a different language. For more information, see Translate a whole file. You can also add the Microsoft Translation machine translation service and have more translation service options.

What do you want to do?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Translate a whole file

Translate selected text

See translations with the Mini Translator

Add translation language services

More information

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Translate a whole fileYou can have a whole file translated by a computer and displayed in an Internet browser. When you choose this kind of translation, the content in your file is sent over the Internet to a service provider.

Note Machine translation is helpful for conveying the basic subject matter of the content and for confirming whether the content is relevant to you. For important or sensitive files, human translation is recommended, because machine translation might not preserve the full meaning and tone of the text.

In the file that you want translated, on the Review tab, in the Language group, click Translate.In the Translation Language Options dialog box, click Translate Document or Translate Item in Outlook, and then click the From and To languages that you want.In the Translate Whole Document dialog box, click Send.A browser instance opens with the text translated into the language that you selected.

To see a side-by-side translation comparison of a whole file, use the Microsoft Translation machine translation service to translate your text. For more information, see Add translation language services.

Note If this is the first time you have used translation services, click OK to install the bilingual dictionaries and enable the translation service through the Research pane.

Top of Page

Translate selected textYou can translate a phrase, sentence, or paragraph into several selected language pairs in the following Microsoft Office programs: Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Visio, and Word. The translations are shown in the Research pane unless you use the Mini Translator.

In the Research pane, in the All Reference Books list, click Translation.

Do one of the following:To translate a specific word, press ALT, and then click a word. The results appear in the Research pane under Translation. If you have the Mini Translator turned on, you can also point to the word that you want translated and the Mini Translator displays the translation. For more information about the Mini Translator, see See translations with the Mini Translator.To translate a short phrase, select the words, press ALT, and then click the selection. The results appear in the Research pane under Translation.To translate a word or phrase, type the word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start Searching . Notes

If this is the first time you have used translation services, click OK to install the bilingual dictionaries and enable the translation service through the Research pane.To change the languages that are used for translation, in the Research pane, under Translation, select the languages that you want to translate from and to. For example, to translate English to French, click English (U.S.) in the From list and French (France) in the To list.To customize which resources are used for translation, click Translation options, and then select the options that you want.