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Translating PDF files
Thread poster: Ana Ribeiro
Ana Ribeiro
Ana Ribeiro
Portugal
Local time: 16:58
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Mar 7, 2019

Hi Everyone. What tools do you use to translate pdf files (like forms)?

 
Kang Seok Lee
Kang Seok Lee
South Korea
Local time: 01:58
Member (2018)
English to Korean
+ ...
Just change it to word file Mar 7, 2019

There are many free sites like under with which you can change your pdf file to word file.
It is simple and very quick.
https://www.pdftoword.com/

aliquis in omnibus, nullus in singulus


 
Ana Ribeiro
Ana Ribeiro
Portugal
Local time: 16:58
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Yes, but the formatting will be terrible. Mar 7, 2019

Yes, but the formatting will be terrible. I use them to get the text, the formatting needs to be done manually.

Claudia Leão
 
Claudia Leão
Claudia Leão
Brazil
Local time: 13:58
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Choose the correct way: PDF into Word format Mar 7, 2019

To turn a PDF file into Word or a similary to edit, avoid free sites unless you don't mind to compromise with fidelity, principally in case of the professional document. If its your own, avoid equally because these sites don't works well. Try to look for how to do that at this article on the OmegaT site. I can't put here without broken this site rules!!
https://medium.com
Is the begining...
Hope you
... See more
To turn a PDF file into Word or a similary to edit, avoid free sites unless you don't mind to compromise with fidelity, principally in case of the professional document. If its your own, avoid equally because these sites don't works well. Try to look for how to do that at this article on the OmegaT site. I can't put here without broken this site rules!!
https://medium.com
Is the begining...
Hope you get to.

[Edited at 2019-03-07 20:40 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-03-07 22:23 GMT]
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DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
Hello Ana, Mar 7, 2019

As far as any PDF is for publishing, nor editing, I avoid wasting time on broken lines, err layouts, and messed data streams just by asking the client for an editable version.

While some CAT tools can convert file formats relatively ok, if I really have to edit a PDF, (1) I always let my client know that it would cost extra, and either (2a) try OCR it via FineReader for complicated formats and something free like WordFast Anywhere [FreeTM.com] for
... See more
As far as any PDF is for publishing, nor editing, I avoid wasting time on broken lines, err layouts, and messed data streams just by asking the client for an editable version.

While some CAT tools can convert file formats relatively ok, if I really have to edit a PDF, (1) I always let my client know that it would cost extra, and either (2a) try OCR it via FineReader for complicated formats and something free like WordFast Anywhere [FreeTM.com] for simple layouts, or (2b) Adobe Acrobat XI pro at the office [minding the NDA].

Besides, I always ask clients about the result format (for screen only [tiny, up to 200 dpi] or as handsouts [larger, 300+dpi]), printing it as a PDF with relevant restrictions, if any.
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Dan Lucas
 
Yoana Ivanova
Yoana Ivanova  Identity Verified
Estonia
Local time: 18:58
English to Bulgarian
+ ...
It's always a hassle Mar 8, 2019

Honestly no matter what kind of conversion tool or OCR you use, it will never get the formatting right, if you have a scanned PDF.

I've tried it many times, with online tools, with FineReader, with Trados's inbuilt OCR, it's all a waste of time.

I just open the PDF and Word side by side, recreate the formatting manually in Word, and then do my translation. Saves a lot of time, believe it or not.

[Edited at 2019-03-08 09:22 GMT]


Ana Ribeiro
Morano El-Kholy
neilmac
Carlos Teran
Gina Centanni
 
Tony M
Tony M
France
Local time: 17:58
Member
French to English
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
One thing that might shorten the process Mar 8, 2019

Yoana Ivanova wrote:
I just open the PDF and Word side by side, recreate the formatting manually in Word, and then do my translation. Saves a lot of time, believe it or not.

I work in a similar way, except that I do start off by using OCR (ABBYY) but get it to output just plain text, which I can then spell-check (to throw up any OCR or s/t errors!) in the source language, before translating in my usual way.
The advantage is that it it a relatively easier job to then recreate the original formatting, especially if you take the time to create the necessary styles that are then quick to apply, even using a little macro. Better still, this formatting is the sort of work you can easily out-source to a skilled word-processing operator!


 
Chris Pr
Chris Pr
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:58
German to English
Is this the article by Sheila Gomes...? Mar 8, 2019

Claudia Magno wrote:

Try to look for how to do that at this article on the OmegaT site. I can't put here without broken this site rules!!
https://medium.com
Is the begining...
Hope you get to.

[Edited at 2019-03-07 20:40 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-03-07 22:23 GMT]


Thanks for posting, since I also struggle with the more complex PDF layouts - with images, charts, graphs, tables etc.


Josephine Cassar
 
Ana Ribeiro
Ana Ribeiro
Portugal
Local time: 16:58
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
HI Yoana. Mar 8, 2019

That is what I do too. In fact, my only CAT Tool is my brain, so I need to do it all manually with my iPad serving as a second screen.

Yoana Ivanova wrote:

Honestly no matter what kind of conversion tool or OCR you use, it will never get the formatting right, if you have a scanned PDF.

I've tried it many times, with online tools, with FineReader, with Trados's inbuilt OCR, it's all a waste of time.

I just open the PDF and Word side by side, recreate the formatting manually in Word, and then do my translation. Saves a lot of time, believe it or not.

[Edited at 2019-03-08 09:22 GMT]


Morano El-Kholy
 
Gabriella Vento
Gabriella Vento  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 09:58
Member (2015)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Trapped with bank statement Mar 10, 2019

The source document was a scanned pdf, containing the whole content in a single large .jpg picture, when turned into Word format.
The content included about 40 transactions, each with several 20 digit code numbers and lots of other untranslatable content. Retyping seemed to be the only solution, a tedious, lengthy process. I ended up rejecting the job.
You guys are right, requesting an editable copy is one way to deal with it, although the client will not likely able to provide one,
... See more
The source document was a scanned pdf, containing the whole content in a single large .jpg picture, when turned into Word format.
The content included about 40 transactions, each with several 20 digit code numbers and lots of other untranslatable content. Retyping seemed to be the only solution, a tedious, lengthy process. I ended up rejecting the job.
You guys are right, requesting an editable copy is one way to deal with it, although the client will not likely able to provide one, (they would have to hire a data entrist, then get the correctness of the data checked, hopefully not you), and the job is lost.
I wonder if any of you have a better idea.

[Edited at 2019-03-10 17:23 GMT]
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Tony M
Tony M
France
Local time: 17:58
Member
French to English
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Bank statement? Not so difficult, surely? Mar 10, 2019

Provided the original is good enough quality and doesn't have too many "damaged" characters, it should be easy enough to OCR it, but turn off all formatting, so that you just get raw text.
With this kind of thing, which normally has fairly clear-cut formatting at the outset, it's not usually difficult to pop it into a table to get the various columns organized correctly, and then do your translation. Ideally, pay someone else who is meticulous to check all the figures for you! After all, j
... See more
Provided the original is good enough quality and doesn't have too many "damaged" characters, it should be easy enough to OCR it, but turn off all formatting, so that you just get raw text.
With this kind of thing, which normally has fairly clear-cut formatting at the outset, it's not usually difficult to pop it into a table to get the various columns organized correctly, and then do your translation. Ideally, pay someone else who is meticulous to check all the figures for you! After all, just remember most of those fogiures probably aren't important, in terms of the information content; and if anyone does have any doubts, it should be easy enough to check back with the original, if the figures are even vaguely in the right format.
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Ciaran Cronin (X)
Ciaran Cronin (X)
Germany
Local time: 17:58
German to English
There is a pretty effective software solution to this problem Mar 10, 2019

The pdf editing software FlexiPDF (in the pro version) has a function for exporting the translatable content of pdf files in .xml format, which can be imported into CAT software such as memoQ and translated in the usual way. The translated text is then exported from the CAT program again as an .xml file which is then re-imported into an automatically created copy of the original pdf file and the source language text is replaced with the target language translations. Ideally all graphics and layo... See more
The pdf editing software FlexiPDF (in the pro version) has a function for exporting the translatable content of pdf files in .xml format, which can be imported into CAT software such as memoQ and translated in the usual way. The translated text is then exported from the CAT program again as an .xml file which is then re-imported into an automatically created copy of the original pdf file and the source language text is replaced with the target language translations. Ideally all graphics and layout features of the original pdf file are preserved one to one.

It works pretty well, but it is not as straightforward as translating Word files and there is extra work involved. One problem is segmentation when the .xml file is imported into the CAT program (at least with memoQ, though I suspect that similar problems will occur with any CAT program, given the complexities of the pdf format and the standard problems with segmentation). Another problem that I have encountered is with supposedly missing characters from fonts when re-importing the translated text into the pdf. Finally, there is the unavoidable problem that the translated text may be too long or too short to fit properly into the spaces allowed by the layout of the source language pdf.

However, the program has tools for dealing with each of these problems and they may have been improved in the 2019 version. Thus far I have only used the 2017 version, which has a comically outdated user interface. Apparently, this has been updated in the 2019 version, so if you plan to translate a lot of pdf files it might be worth acquiring this software. But if you don't like fiddling around with software or don't work with a compatible CAT program, it probably wouldn't be worth the bother or the expense.
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Nicole König
 
Nicole König
Nicole König  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 17:58
German to English
+ ...
Struggled with Abby, super happy with smallpdf.com Mar 12, 2019

The best results so far I got from a free online tool - - now I'm working with the PRO version that gives you the added comfort of offline functionality:

www.smallpdf.com

Maybe look it up? At €40 a year, it's crazy-affordable compared to some of the translator-targeted options out there, and it does an amazing job.

Don't forget to calculate the added time and effort of wor
... See more
The best results so far I got from a free online tool - - now I'm working with the PRO version that gives you the added comfort of offline functionality:

www.smallpdf.com

Maybe look it up? At €40 a year, it's crazy-affordable compared to some of the translator-targeted options out there, and it does an amazing job.

Don't forget to calculate the added time and effort of working with unmanageable source files into your project rate!
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DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
NDA? Mar 12, 2019

Nicole, while I also occasionally had nuances with complicated layouts in FineReader, I often work offline and prefer paying €199 once for an all-in-one PDF scan/edit tool--without yearly subscription, let alone possible NDA issues.

Instead of mitigating and trying to solve the problem, I either ask the client for an editable version (RTF/DOC/DOCX), or warn and charge him more for extra services. So far, my clients mostly prefer the former--no problem)


 
Sergey Inozemtsev
Sergey Inozemtsev
Local time: 21:58
Russian
Translate pdf file (like form) Oct 7, 2019

Hello, Ana!
You can open you pdf file in Adobe Illustrator.
Run this script (https://youtu.be/E1V3QKtvKvs) and export all text to txt file.
After translated txt file you can import translated text back to Illustartor file and save as pdf file.


 
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