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I downloaded an important PDF e-book but it is not in English. Is there a software or another way I can translate the entire e-book into English or another language?

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  • when i translate english into urdu google does not tranlate it correctly even i can't understand what translated paragraph is saing.
    – user6731
    Jun 12, 2016 at 20:55
  • For professional e-book translations or any professional book translation I've successfully used: ExpertTranslations.com
    – ProgrammerGirl
    Apr 3, 2020 at 12:23

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You can upload your PDF to Google Drive, convert it to Google Docs (open with Docs), and apply tool Translate to... English. It will make a copy of the PDF in editable format and also keep the original.

  1. Visit drive.google.com, sign into it with your username and password

  2. Click on NEW > File Upload, select the file from your computer..

  3. After uploading the file, click on ‘Recent’ on left and and select the uploaded file, right click on it and select Open with >’Google Docs’

  4. When the document will open in another tab, click on Tools > Select ‘Translate document’

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  1. Enter the document title, choose a language to translate into and click on ‘Translate’ button

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  1. Translated document will open in another tab, which you can edit, print or download to your computer.

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    However if the book is that important note that Google translate might not be accurate enough, especially if you need to make references to it elsewhere
    – mmmmmm
    Dec 24, 2013 at 12:50
  • Yes I agree completely. If you need it translated properly, either find another version of the book that was translated professionally, or pay to have it done professionally yourself.
    – Jason Down ♦
    Dec 24, 2013 at 14:29
  • @JasonDown - Wouldn't the costs of that start in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for a modest-length book?
    – Obie 2.0
    Nov 14, 2018 at 7:00
  • @Obie2.0: Having a book translated professionally would vary in cost, depending on size, who you hired etc.. This is something you would consider doing for a book you are having published though, not something you just want to read in a different language.
    – Jason Down ♦
    Nov 14, 2018 at 17:04
  • I followed these steps and ended up with only the first 21 pages translated.
    – Jan
    Sep 17, 2021 at 18:28
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Some eBook reader apps are able to translate for you on the fly (I know of two, Google Books and Cool Reader. A better list is in Wikipedia features table).

Please note that this translation isn't guaranteed to be very good, and language support differs between readers as well.

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If you need a professional quality level translation, (as you seem to imply when you mark the book as important), I think that your only option is to hire someone who has knowledge of both languages that can do the work for you. By using any online or computerized service you can't have any guarantee about the quality of the translation.

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    I would add that the translator also needs to have domain knowledge of the subject matter in many fields there are terms and abbreviations that are also in standard usage in that language but do not translate directly and there are often borrowed terms that should not be translated, e.g. in psychology and philosophy in English it is correct to use Weltanschauung - it should not be translated from German.
    – Steve Barnes
    Nov 21, 2015 at 5:42
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There are three ways you can do this:

  1. You can use Google translate

You won’t be doing this directly.

  • First, you need to copy the text from the PDF file and paste it on the google translate.
  • Once translated, transfer the new converted text to a word document file.

For PDF format preference: Convert the document file to PDF by clicking File, go to Save as, click PDF in the Save as type list then click save.

  1. You can hire a translator

Freelance translators are available online. You can try to hire on freelancing sites like Freelancer, Upwork or Guru.

  1. You can use an online PDF translator

    • Online PDF converters and software to translate PDF files directly to English are now available. You just need to upload it to the site
    • Once uploaded, you need to select the language that your PDF is currently in and select the language that you want it to be converted into
    • Then click convert for translation and download the processed document

Note: Options 1 and 3 may not be as fluent or may not have the complete slang that the language has typically, but it will do the work. Translators meanwhile may mean paying a fee.

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You can try "Document Translator" for translation of any documents or e-books. It is very easy to use and the translation quality is excellent. It allows me to translate an entire book quickly with a perfectly formatted document. I believe this is a great app

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You can use http://translation-embedder.com which enables you to upload a PDF and get a generated HTML e book. This e book can be opened in any browser - best to use is Google's Chrome. In this new book when you click on the word you will get instant translation and also text to speech capability - this can be turned off. You can view this new HTML e book off line without Internet connection. Application is free to use.You can also read your E book on any mobile phone browser.

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You mentioned the e-book is important, so I would not recommend a machine translation which is meant for casual translations just to get the gist of something. I'm a programmer and long-time active member over on the main Stack Overflow site, but I've had to have important books translated on a few occasions (both related to programming and not).

If the e-book is genuinely important, then obviously use a professional translation service that specializes in book translations done by an actual person. I've used ExpertTranslations.com before for a mission-critical book translation in Spanish and they did a solid job. For a short one in Latvian I used the Human Translator App and they too did a solid job here. Don't use either if you don't have any kind of budget because they are not free.

For anything not important or if you don't have a budget for the ebook translation, just use Google Translate or DeepL and it will be good enough. That's what I use 99% of the time and it's never failed me as I can always get the gist of it from those AI translations.

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If you consider using machine translation, try GT4T. It integrates 21 machine translation engines worldwide so that you get always get the best translation whatever your language pair is.

It very easy to use too. Simply drag and drop your PDF files to its interface and that's it.

Download here https://gt4t.net/

Note: I am the developer

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Free translators for books:

EPUB translator https://app-ebt.web.app

PDF translator https://app-pbt-674bd.web.app

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I am using a plugin called "Translate Book" on Calibre. It's not perfect but it works fine.

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