--- title: "How to translate a Word document with AI" description: "Translate a Word document without copy and paste. Compare the options, then follow the steps for a long contract or manual, in the app or with your AI agent." date: 2026-10-04 language: en canonical: https://ai-glot.com/blog/how-to-translate-word-document-with-ai source: AI Glot blog --- **Translating a Word document should not mean pasting it into a chat, page by page, and fixing the layout afterwards.** The file should go in as a Word file and come out as a Word file. This guide is for the real documents: a contract, a handbook, a 90-page manual, a proposal you send to every new market. ## Which option should you use? | | Good for | Where it stops | |---|---|---| | **AI Glot** | Long documents, a glossary that must hold, recurring files, several languages | Not needed for one short email | | **DeepL** | One file, quickly. [It takes Word files up to 30 MB](https://developers.deepl.com/docs/best-practices/document-translations) | One document at a time, no plan to read first, and a glossary that swaps terms without understanding why they are fixed | | **Word's built-in translate** | One document, if you have Microsoft 365. [Review, Translate, Translate Document opens a translated copy](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/languages/translate-text-into-a-different-language) | One document at a time, and Microsoft's page describes no glossary, no scope rules and no cost or plan to review first | | **ChatGPT, Claude or another assistant** | A few paragraphs | You write the prompt and bring your glossary into each chat. You get text back, not your file. A long document writes out word by word and uses up your usage limit | | **An agency or a freelancer** | A contract that gets signed, a flagship page | Slow, priced per word, and you still prepare the file | **Hire a person for the document where one wrong word costs money.** For the rest of your documents, the time goes into file handling, not language. ## Why AI Glot fits a Word file - **Word in, Word out.** Headings, tables, headers, footers and footnotes are translated in place. Styles, images and page setup stay as they were. - **Formatting follows the words.** A bold word or a link stays attached to the right words, even when the word order changes. - **One glossary for the whole document.** The term in clause 1 is the term in clause 90, and it carries over to your next document. - **A plan before any spend.** It shows the parts it will translate, the languages and the cost. - **Scope in one sentence.** For example: the body only, not the signature block. ## The path of one file *Illustration: The five steps of a Word job. Everything before approval is free, so a plan that misread the document costs nothing to correct.* Nothing costs anything before step four. ## What a translated paragraph looks like The words change. The formatting does not. *Illustration: One clause before and after. The words change, and the styles, fonts and page setup come back as they were.* ## What is left alone Three things are left as they are, and the plan tells you each time. **Tracked changes.** Translating a revision would mean deciding for the author whether to accept it. Accept or reject your changes first if you want that text translated. **Comments.** Comment threads stay as written. **Text inside charts, SmartArt and embedded objects.** Retype those few labels afterwards. ## How to do it, step by step **1. Try a file for free.** The [Word translator](/file-formats/word-translation) needs no account and takes files up to 2 MB and 5,000 words. **2. Upload the document** in [the app](https://app.ai-glot.com/signup). If it is an old `.doc`, open it in Word and save it as `.docx` first. **3. Say what you need in one sentence.** ``` Translate this agreement into French. Translate the body and the tables, but not the signature block. ``` *Illustration: You describe the job in plain English. AI Glot turns it into a plan you can read and correct before anything runs.* The sentence decides what is translated, across the whole document. Rules about the wording itself, such as "use the formal register", go into the second box at approval, because they are applied to each paragraph as it is written. **4. Add your glossary.** Defined terms, product names, the translation your lawyer approved for "Licensor". [How to build a glossary](/blog/build-translation-glossary-brand). *Illustration: A glossary settles the terms that must not drift, and applies the same decision to every file.* **5. Read the plan.** Fix anything in a sentence and it plans again. **6. Choose Lite or Standard.** *Illustration: Two quality tiers, chosen per file. Lite covers about three times more words for the same credits.* **Lite** gives about three times more words per credit and is faster: right for an internal draft or a large archive. **Standard** is for text that is signed or published. One credit is one word in Standard. **7. Approve and download.** *Illustration: One file comes back, in the format it arrived in.* ## One document, several languages *Illustration: One Word document becomes one translated document per language, with the same styles and the same glossary.* The file names are an example. A document holds one language, so each target language is its own upload and its own translated file. The same glossary applies to every one of them. ## Three ways to run it *Illustration: Three ways to run a Word job. They all give you the same translated document.* **In the app** suits a document now and then. **With your AI agent:** connect AI Glot as an [MCP server](https://ai-glot.com/docs/mcp/overview) and the agent can upload the file, write the plan, edit your glossary and download the result, all from the conversation you already have open. **With the API or the command line:** to translate every document a team produces, or to plug translation into a document workflow. See the [API documentation](https://ai-glot.com/docs/api/overview). ## Check the result Open the file in Word. Look at a table, a footnote and the first page of a long section. Then update the table of contents (right-click, Update field), because page numbers can shift when the text length changes. To see what the plan says about your own document, the [free Word translator](/file-formats/word-translation) will read it without an account, and a [free account](https://app.ai-glot.com/signup) comes with credits to run a real file. [Pricing](/pricing) lists what a larger volume costs. --- *The limits quoted here are the ones in force when this was written: 25 MB per Word file, and 2 MB and 5,000 words in the free tool. DeepL's limit comes from its own documentation. File names and page counts in the diagrams are examples. Your plan shows the real figures for your own file, and it is free to read.*