Welcome to the DropTranslate blog
DropTranslate translates whole documents — Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, subtitles and more — into 60 languages, keeping the layout. This blog is where we explain how that actually works and how to get the best result from it.
We're not going to pretend machine translation is perfect. Some documents only need to be understood, and for those a machine translation is fast, cheap and good enough. Others — a contract you'll sign, a visa application, a diploma for a university — need a human translator, and often a certified one. Knowing which is which saves you time and money, so most of our guides start there.
What you'll find here
- How-to guides for each file type: translating a PDF without wrecking the layout, translating an Excel sheet cell by cell, subtitles, and more.
- Honest comparisons: the translator built into Word, browser tools, AI document translators and human translators — what each is good at.
- Legal, visa and academic topics where the rules matter, always pointing at the official source.
- Plain answers to the questions we get most: Is my file safe? Which languages have the biggest layout problems? When do I need a certified translation?
The one rule behind all of it
If a document has to be accepted by someone else — a government office, a court, a university — find out their translation rules first. Everything else is a detail. If it only has to be understood by you, translate away and don't overthink it.
New guides land regularly. If there's a document type you'd like us to cover, tell us.