Which file formats keep their layout after translation?

Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files come back in the same format with their structure intact. PDFs are returned as editable Word rather than a copied PDF, because a translated PDF cannot be rebuilt pixel-for-pixel reliably.

Do tracked changes and comments in Word survive?

Yes. Tracked changes, comments, footnotes, equations, headers, footers, and hyperlinks are preserved, so a document under review stays under review after translation.

Will PowerPoint text overflow its boxes if the language runs longer?

Text is fitted to the space each slide has; when a translation runs longer, the font size steps down instead of spilling over. Speaker notes are translated too, and slides are never flattened into a PDF.

Does Excel keep its formulas?

Yes. Sheets, cell references, and table structure stay intact, and formulas are kept as formulas rather than frozen into fixed values. Numbers themselves are left untranslated.

How much does it cost to try?

You get 300 free credits a month with no credit card, covering PDF and Word. Billing is by actual size — a 2-page file costs 2 pages, with no per-file minimum — and you see the estimate before you confirm. PowerPoint and Excel are on the Starter plan.

Can it translate a scanned PDF?

Yes, through the same upload. A scanned PDF is read first, then translated, and returned as editable Word. Result quality depends on scan clarity and the language pair, so check names, dates, and amounts against the source for official documents.

How to Translate a Document Without Breaking the Layout (2026)

To translate a document without wrecking its layout, keep the file in its own format the whole way through: upload the Word, PowerPoint, or Excel file itself, translate inside the document, and download the same format back. The common failure — tables gone, headers merged into body text, a two-column page collapsed into one — comes from tools that copy the text out, translate it, and paste it back. This guide shows what each format keeps, the exact steps, and where the limits are.

Why translated documents lose their formatting

A document is not a block of text. A Word file is paragraphs with styles, tables with merged cells, images anchored to positions, and often a revision history. A PDF is stricter still: it records where each character sits on the page, not how the document is built.

Two things break a layout during translation:

Text gets separated from its structure. Extract-translate-repaste loses the table a sentence lived in, the header it belonged to, the list it numbered.
Languages change length. German runs about 30% longer than English; Chinese is far more compact. Text that no longer fits either overflows its box or reflows the page.

Keeping the layout means translating inside the file so structure and text never come apart.

What stays in place, by file format

Format	Comes back as	What's preserved
Word	Word	Paragraphs, tables, images, equations, headers, footers, hyperlinks — and tracked changes and comments
PowerPoint	PowerPoint	Slide layout, with text refit to available space; speaker notes translated
Excel	Excel	Sheets, cell references, table structure; formulas kept as formulas
PDF	Editable Word	Reading order and structure, rebuilt as a document you can edit

A few specifics worth knowing:

Word keeps its review state. Tracked changes, comments, and footnotes survive translation, so a contract with redlines or a draft with pending comments stays reviewable — you don't restart the review in a new language. In one English-to-Chinese job, a 2,880-paragraph equipment manual came back with every paragraph and all 78 images in place and its table of contents translated.
PowerPoint text is fitted, not spilled. When a translation runs longer than the source, the font size steps down to fit the box rather than pushing the layout apart. Slides are never flattened to a PDF.
Excel leaves numbers alone. Values and formulas are not "translated"; only text strings are. A set of Brazilian financials kept all 4,700 cells of figures through a Portuguese-to-English translation.
Right-to-left targets adjust automatically. Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu output gets right-to-left paragraph and table direction without manual fixing.

How to translate a document and keep the layout

Upload the whole file. Use the original Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or PDF — not a screenshot or a copy-pasted export.
Set the languages. Pick the source language or let it auto-detect, then choose the target.
Add a glossary or style if terminology has to be exact. For legal, medical, or financial work, attach a glossary so a term lands the same way every time.
Download the result. Office files return in their own format; PDFs return as editable Word.

Then do the one check that matters for anything official: compare names, dates, and amounts against the source.

What about PDFs

A PDF is a print format — it stores the position of ink, not the logic of the document. Tools that promise a translated PDF identical to the original hold that promise only on simple pages.

So a PDF translation here comes back as editable Word that follows the document's reading order, including scanned PDFs, which are read first and then translated. You get a file you can correct and reformat, not a locked lookalike. For the scanning specifics, see translating a scanned PDF to editable Word.

Where it still falls short

PDF output follows structure, not pixels. If you need a byte-identical visual replica of a complex PDF, this isn't the tool.
Very complex multi-column forms — oversized pages with deeply nested, merged headers — aren't reliable yet, so they aren't claimed.
Scanned quality tracks the scan. Clear print translates cleanly; low-contrast pages and handwriting are harder.

Trying it

You get 300 free credits a month with no credit card, which covers PDF and Word (PowerPoint and Excel are on the Starter plan). Billing is by the actual size of the document — a 2-page file is billed as 2 pages, with no per-file minimum — and the estimate shows before you confirm. If a translation fails or you cancel it, the credits are refunded automatically. Uploaded files are deleted within 24 hours, translations within 7 days, and nothing is used to train any model.

The only test that settles it is your own document. Upload one and check the layout yourself.