Translate text

Using the Research feature, you can translate single words or short phrases by using bilingual dictionaries or translate your entire document by using Web-based machine translation services. To translate text, you may also need to satisfy the operating system requirements for specific languages.What do you want to do?

Translate text

Enable the Translation ScreenTip in Outlook and Word

Translate text

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 documents, human translation is recommended, because machine translation may not preserve the full meaning and tone of the text.

1. Do the following in these Microsoft Office programs:

   Outlook

   • In an open message, click the message body, and then on the Message tab, in the Proofing group, click Spelling, and then click Translate.

     Note In Microsoft Office Outlook, the Research task pane is available from any open Outlook item, but not from the main Outlook window.

     

     Tip In the Reading Pane, right-click the message body, and then click Translate on the shortcut menu.

   Excel, PowerPoint, or Word

   • On the Review tab, click Translate.

     Tip In Word, right-click anywhere in the document, and then click Translate on the shortcut menu.

   Publisher, OneNote, or Visio

   • On the Tools menu, click Research, and then in the All Reference Books list, click Translation.

     

2. 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 task pane.
3. To change the languages that are used for translation, in the Research task 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.

   Note To customize which resources are used for translation, click Translation options, and then select the look-up options that you want.

4. Do one of the following:
   • To translate a specific word, press ALT and click a word. The results appear in the Research task pane under Translation.

     Note Using ALT+Click is not supported in Microsoft Office PowerPoint. Instead, type the word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start Searching .

   • To translate a short phrase, select the words, press ALT and click the selection. The results appear in the Research task pane under Translation.

     Note Using ALT+Click is not supported in Microsoft Office PowerPoint. Instead, type the word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start Searching .

   • To translate a whole document, in the Research task pane, under Translation, click Translate the whole document . A translation of your document appears in your Web browser. Translate the whole document is available only in Microsoft Office Word.

     Note Privacy Alert If you choose to translate your whole document, your document is sent unencrypted to a third-party translation service. As with any information that is sent unencrypted over the Internet, it might be possible for other people to see the document.

   • To translate a word or phrase, type the word or phrase in the Search for box, and then click Start Searching .

Enable the Translation ScreenTip in Outlook and Word

You can enable an Enhanced ScreenTip that translates words that you pause on with your pointer. The languages supported by default are English, French, and Spanish. Other languages are available if the Translation dictionary service for that language is available.

Do the following in these Microsoft Office programs:

Outlook

1. In a message, click anywhere in the message body.
2. On the Message tab, in the Proofing group, click Spelling, and then click Translation ScreenTip.

   Tip In a message, right-click anywhere in the message body, and then click Translate on the shortcut menu.

Word

1. On the Review tab, click Translation ScreenTip.

   

2. Select the language you want the word translated to.
3. Pause the pointer over the word that you want to translate.

   A ScreenTip appears next to the word with the word translated.

See also:

• Check spelling and grammar
• Enable Windows XP support for certain languages (East Asian, Southeast Asian, Indic, and right-to-left languages)
• Look up words in the dictionary
• Look up words in the thesaurus
• Use custom dictionaries to add words to the spelling checker