Smartcat pulls the text out of your PDF, translates it into any of 280+ languages, and rebuilds the document with the original layout, fonts, tables and images in place — one workflow inside Smartcat's agentic AI translation platform. Scanned PDFs work too: built-in OCR reads documents that are really just pictures of text.
1,000+ enterprise brands translate their PDFs in Smartcat.
A PDF isn't a document — it's a picture of one. Most translators pull the words out and hand you back a wall of plain paragraphs: tables collapse into run-on lines, headers and footers disappear, two-column pages merge into one. If the file is a scan, half the tools reject it outright.
Then the real cost starts, and it isn't the translation. Someone rebuilds the file by hand. The 80-page supplier manual that took thirty seconds to "translate" takes days to reset in InDesign — once per language. Comparing approaches rather than translating a file today? Start with our guide to document translation.
Smartcat fixes this at the platform level: AI coworkers do the translating, the visual editor shows the result on the live layout, and every approved edit compounds in the Intelligence Fabric for the next file.
280+
languages supported
One source file, as many target languages as you need.
80+
file types, not just PDF
The same workspace takes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InDesign, XLIFF, subtitle files and more.
4 GB
per upload
No practical page ceiling for typed PDFs — a 500-page document sits well inside the limit.
Smartcat handles high-volume pairs and long-tail requests from the same workspace.
High volume customer and marketing content
Brand, legal, and support documents
Technical, product, and operations files
Supplier, quality, and compliance content
Product, training, and localization materials
The translation is the easy part. What decides whether the file is usable is the platform around it — the visual editor, Chat, Projects, and an Intelligence Fabric that compounds every approved edit.
for ease of setup
for ease of use
enterprise brands translate in Smartcat
Type II compliant — files encrypted in transit and at rest
Upload a file and watch the layout come back intact. Free trial: 15,000 Smartwords over 15 days, no credit card.
Smartcat's PDF translator is an online tool that extracts text from any PDF — including scanned files, via OCR — translates it into 280+ languages using your own glossary and translation memory, and rebuilds the document with its original layout, tables and images preserved. Any translation can be reviewed by a human before export. It's one workflow in the same agentic workspace teams use for Word, video and courses.
Translate a PDF in five steps
From upload to a finished document in one workspace — no rebuilding, no copy-paste.
1
Upload your PDF
Drag your file in. Scanned files are detected and OCR'd automatically.
2
Pick your languages
One source, as many targets as you need from 280+.
3
Get the draft
The Content Translator Coworker translates the file with your glossary and translation memory applied, so product names, disclaimers and table headings come out the same way every time.
4
Review only what matters
Open the visual editor to check the translation against the live layout, comment in Chat and coordinate the work in Projects. Skip it entirely when the draft is enough.
5
Export the finished PDF
Same layout, new language.
Enterprises run on PDFs, and they're the hardest files to translate — long regulatory submissions, design-heavy catalogs, scanned back-office records.
Long, text-heavy documents — regulatory submissions, SOPs, clinical reports, manuals. Design-heavy PDFs — brand catalogs, brochures, infographics, POS assets. Simple documents and scans — contracts, certificates, back-office records.
Long regulatory submissions and design-heavy catalogs come back in days instead of weeks — across 280+ languages, without adding headcount.
Every translation lands in a complete visual editor. Click any element and tell Smartcat what you want in plain language — “make this shorter,” “match the brand blue” — and see the change before you accept it. No designer round-trips, no re-running the job, no design skills needed.
| What you get back | ✓ A finished PDF in the new language, ready to send | ~ A rough file or copyable text | ~ Translated text in a chat window that you rebuild into a document yourself |
| Original layout, tables and images preserved on export | ✓ Yes — document reassembled, fonts, columns, tables and images in place | ~ Partial — formatting often lost | ✗ No — it returns text, not your rebuilt file |
| Scanned / image-only PDFs | ✓ Built-in OCR, and the translated text goes back into the layout | ~ Limited | ~ Reads many scans, but the output is still text |
| Long documents in one pass | ✓ Files up to 4 GB; no practical page ceiling for typed PDFs | ~ Per-file size and page caps | ~ Chat context limits — long files get truncated or chunked |
| Terminology that holds across every file | ✓ Managed glossary and translation memory; the Intelligence Fabric compounds every approved edit | ✗ No | ~ You can paste a glossary into each prompt; nothing is stored as a reusable asset |
| Human expert review in the same workflow | ✓ Marketplace of vetted linguists, reviewed against the live layout in the visual editor | ✗ No | ✗ No — you arrange review yourself |
| Run the same job again next month | ✓ Projects, Chat and version history — resume and re-export | ✗ Manual every time | ~ Re-prompting works, but output varies run to run |
Reported by Smartcat customers in their own case studies.
400%
faster turnaround
Smith+Nephew reduced translation turnaround time.
70%
lower translation costs
Stanley Black & Decker cut costs while increasing output — reported by Josie Millis, Customer Marketing.
50%
cost saving in 2023
isEazy, across its multilingual course catalogue.
92%
faster turnaround
Kids2, using the Smartcat–Salsify connector.
Check what a plan costs, or walk through a real document with a Smartcat specialist.
Upload the file, pick the languages, export a finished document — no rebuilding, no copy-paste, no InDesign. Then run it again next month: the Intelligence Fabric makes every repeat workflow faster. Free trial: 15,000 Smartwords over 15 days, no credit card.
Every plan starts with a 15-day free trial — 15,000 Smartwords and full access to translation capabilities, no card required. Paid plans start at $1,200/year (Adapt) and scale through Accelerate and the enterprise tiers. Translation is metered in Smartwords — usage credits based on word count, not page count or file size — and text already in your translation memory isn't charged twice. Full breakdown on the pricing page and in how Smartcat calculates translation costs.
For 15 days, yes — 15,000 Smartwords with full access to translation capabilities, no card. After that it's a paid plan. Being straight about it: there is no permanently free tier, and the free tools ranking on this page are genuinely free and genuinely fine for one file you don't care much about. What you pay for here is layout fidelity on hard documents, a glossary that holds across a set of files, and a human review step. One throwaway PDF doesn't need any of that.
Smartcat is SOC 2 Type II compliant. Files are encrypted in transit and at rest, workspaces are isolated so no other account can reach your documents, and access is per user with role-based rights — see User Roles & Access Rights. SSO through Azure AD, Okta and ADFS is available on higher tiers. Details on the security page, and on the handling of contracts and other legal documents.
The free tools translate the words; the difference is what you get back. Smartcat reassembles the document so the layout survives in the output, reads scanned PDFs with built-in OCR, reuses your glossary and translation memory across files so the tenth document is cheaper and more consistent than the first, adds human review from a marketplace of vetted experts in the same workflow, and handles Word, Excel, video and courses alongside PDFs. An AI assistant like ChatGPT translates the text of a PDF well, but it hands you text in a chat window — you still rebuild the document yourself, and nothing it learns carries over to the next file. Google Translate is a trademark of Google LLC and ChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI; Smartcat is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by either.
No — PDF translation is one workflow inside Smartcat, an enterprise AI translation platform. The same workspace and AI coworkers handle Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InDesign, subtitles, video and e-learning courses across 280+ languages, with the visual editor, Chat and Projects keeping review and collaboration in one place. Engineering teams use the same setup for technical documentation. Your glossary and translation memory follow you across all of them.
The learning layer of the platform. It compounds every approved edit, term and translation memory entry, so each PDF you translate makes the next one faster, cheaper and more consistent — the tenth manual starts with everything the first nine settled. And it works across content types, not just PDFs.
It depends on the scan. Clean 300-dpi scans of typed text translate reliably. Accuracy degrades on low-resolution scans, handwriting and dense multi-column tables — OCR can misread characters there, and a misread source produces a confidently wrong translation. For files like that, take the draft and add a human review pass on the sections that carry risk. The same OCR route covers scanned documents that are really images of text.
Smartcat accepts files up to 4 GB per upload on standard workspaces, and enterprise workspaces can have that raised on request. There's no practical page ceiling for typed PDFs — size is what binds, and a 500-page text document sits well inside the limit. Scanned PDFs are the exception: every page is stored as an image, so a 20-page scan can be larger than a 300-page report. More on what changes with very large PDF files.
You export a PDF that mirrors the original, and you can also download the editable working file if you need to change something downstream. The translation is stored in your workspace, so re-exporting after an edit doesn't re-charge Smartwords for unchanged text. See exporting files.
Yes — upload a batch and each file becomes a document in the same project, sharing one glossary and translation memory so terminology holds across the whole set. Progress is tracked per file, so a problem in one document doesn't hold up the rest.
Yes, on the Anticipate and Autonomous plans. The API accepts documents, returns translated output, and syncs translation memories programmatically, so PDF translation can run inside your own pipeline instead of through the web interface. Note the API is not part of the free trial. See API guides.
Your workspace, files and translation memories stay in your account — nothing is deleted when the 15-day trial expires. You keep access to what you translated and can pick up where you left off by choosing a plan.
Book a demo — a 1:1 consultation with a Smartcat specialist, no commitment, no form queue.