How to translate an Excel spreadsheet
How to translate an Excel spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are used by professionals and businesses to organize and store valuable data that can be used to perform calculations, analyze trends, or visualize written data in the form of graphical charts. Excel is one of the most widely used spreadsheet programs available today. It is a part of the Microsoft Office suite of software.
A globalized economy
With more and more companies and organizations becoming multinational, translating key documents such as excel spreadsheets has become crucial. After all, although English is the most popular language, understanding information and analyzing data is much easier in our native language.
Thus, translating excel spreadsheets into different languages helps to facilitate business communication with different branches of the company that are located in foreign lands.
Translating Excel spreadsheets using the built-in translation tool
You can translate .xls or .xlsx files using different methods. The easiest way to translate an excel spreadsheet is to use the built-in translation tool inside the software. To translate any text inside an excel file using the built-in translation tool, you just have to follow the steps listed below:
- Open the sheet and select the cell with the text that you want to change.
- Go to the Review tab and then click on the Translate option to open the research window on the right.
- Select the language that you want to translate from and then select the language that you want to translate to.
- Now, click on the Insert option to replace the text or just copy and paste it over the original text.
Translating Excel spreadsheets using online translation tools
Translating Excel files using the built-in translation tool present in the software can come in handy when you just have to translate specific parts of the sheet that are in a different language. However, it will take a lot of work to translate a whole sheet which may contain hundreds of cells into a different language. The reason being that you can only translate a single cell at a time and not the whole document.
To overcome this problem, you can use an online translation tool that can translate excel sheets into the language you require.
Online translation tools can be a great help when you have to translate simple excel spreadsheet documents in bulk. However, when you have to translate files that contain charts and diagrams, the translation may not work properly due to compatibility issues. Also, it is wise to not upload files that contain sensitive information.
Translate Excel spreadsheets by hiring a translation agency or translator
Hiring a translator or translation agency to translate an excel spreadsheet will allow you to achieve the best result. The built-in translation tool present in excel and every type of online translation tool use machine translation to translate the information from one language to another. Thus, the quality of the translation will be sub-par or even inaccurate at times.
So, it is better to hire professionals who actually understand what they are doing. Although it will cost some money, it will save you a lot of headaches and the end result will be the best.
Conclusion – how to translate Excel spreadsheets
Plus, you will not suffer from compatibility or security issues. This is because they will manually edit the documents after signing a contract.
