Web browsers like Google Chrome offer built-in translation options, others offer add-ons like Quick Translator to add this functionality to the web browser.

But browser add-ons or features are limited to one browser, which may not be enough if you are also receiving emails, messages or documents in languages that you are not fluent in.

That’s where desktop translation clients come into play. QTranslate is a lightweight free translation software for the Windows operating system. The program supports six different translation engines: Google Translate, Microsoft Translate, Promt, SDL, Yahoo Babel Fish and Yandex.

QTranslate registers several global hotkeys that let you translate text from any open program window. The two most important hotkeys are Ctrl-q, which displays a translation of the highlighted text in a popup window, or Ctrl-Ctrl which sends the highlighted text to the program window where it is then translated.

Tests in the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird email client, Google Mail and Microsoft Office were all successful.

QTranslate detects the original language the highlighted text is written in automatically. First time users need to make sure that the target language is set correctly in the main program window.

The keyboard shortcut Ctrl-e furthermore uses text to speech synthesis to read the text out loud. This only works if Google Translate or Microsoft Translate are selected as the translation engines.

Another interesting option is the ability to run a web search for selected text with the shortcut Ctrl-w. Web hits are displayed in a small popup window next to the highlighted text.

The program keeps track of all previous translations, which can be displayed in a history window with the shortcut Ctrl-H.

Verdict

QTranslate is a versatile translation software for the Windows operating system. Support for six translation services and hotkey driven translations are the program’s main selling points.

Microsoft’s Translation service is without doubt not as popular as Google’s service. The service is available over at Microsoft Translator. It works pretty much as Google Translate works. The translation service auto-detects the original content language and offers to translate it into one of the supported languages.

Users can enter text or website addresses at the translator site to get the textual contents translated.

Microsoft has released a bookmarklet for their translation service recently that everyone can use to translate web contents on the fly. The bookmarklet is available on this page.

You first need to select the language that you want the original text to be translated to. The pulldown menu lists many languages, from English and German to Spanish, Portuguese or Japanese.

You then need to drag and drop the bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmark’s bar or bookmarks. You can alternatively right-click the link on the Translator Bookmarklet page to bookmark it this way. Depending on the frequency of use, you may want to place it prominently in the browser.

A click on the bookmarklet on a foreign language page invokes the translation. The bookmarklet adds a small toolbar to the top of the page that is visualizing the translation process and the original and destination language.

A click on a language displays a selection menu where it can be switched to another language. That’s handy if the automatic language detection did not detect the correct language used on the page, or where you may want the text to be translated into a different language.

The original text on the page is displayed whenever you move the mouse over a translated sentence.

Microsoft’s Translator bookmarklet is a handy tool for users who need to translate web contents regularly. Google is also offering translate bookmarklets for their Google Translate translation service. (via)

One of the extensions is Translate This for the Firefox web browser. The extension uses the Google Translate service to translate selected text or the whole page.

The restartless add-on adds an icon to Firefox’s add-on bar. New users need to hold down Shift and left-click the icon to open its configuration settings. The most important one is the target language which is set to English by default. Users who want a different target language need to enter the country code (e.g. de for Germany) into the settings window.

The settings hold two additional configuration options. You can change the default keyboard shortcut that triggers the translation of the web page and whether translated pages should be opened in new tabs or the same tab.

You need to use the keyboard shortcut (default Ctrl-Alt-t) or left-click on the extension’s icon in the Firefox toolbar to translate the full web page.

If you only want part of the page translated do the following: Select the contents with the mouse, right-click the highlighted text afterwards and pick Translate This – Selection from the context menu.

This replaces the original text with the translated version directly on the page. The page is not reloaded, only the text is replaced.

It is furthermore possible to translate linked pages directly. A right-click on a link on a normal page and the selection of Translate This – Link opens the linked translated page in a new tab in Firefox.

Firefox users can install Translate This at the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository. The extension is versatile and easy to use. Only the ability to modify the Ctrl-Alt part of the keyboard shortcut would have been handy.

Still, I use it and have encountered posts on the site regularly that are in a language that I do not understand or barely understand. That’s a issue sometimes especially when posts look interesting. This can be the case if a screenshot is posted along with the post for instance.

Google has just released a Google Translate version for Google+ for the Chrome browser. The extension basically saves users from having to open a translation service such as Google Translate to translate the post into another language.

The extension adds a Translate link in the “+1 Comment Share” line on all posts on Google Plus.

Here are two screenshots that demonstrate the extension’s functionality on the Google Plus website.

It feels a bit strange that the Translate link is shown on every post on Google Plus, even if the post is written in the user’s native language. Then again, this is probably the resource friendly way of adding the functionality, as it would take some processing power to parse the page for foreign language posts.

Translations are instant without page reloads, which is the optimal solution for on-page translations. The extension displays translated text with a yellow background on the Google+ website. The color of the background can be changed in the extension options.

Chrome users can pick a different background with a click on one of the colors in the options or by entering the color code in the background for the translation field.

It is furthermore possible to deactivate the translate link by default, and add it only to the Google+ page when the extension button is clicked on. The button is automatically placed on the right side of the Google Chrome address bar.

And, there is obviously an option to select the language that you want the posts to be translated into.

Chrome users who happen to spend time on Google+ can download the Google Translate for Google+ extension from the official Chrome Web Store. (via)

Users need to use the advanced search parameter define followed by the phrase that they need to look up in a dictionary to display the definition on the Google search results page. The search define dictionary for instance returns the following definition on the search results page.

Looking up definitions on Google directly is not the most comfortable of options, especially not so if you need to look them up regularly. The core usability issue here is that you need to switch between tabs in the browser whenever you want to look up a word. This breaks the workflow and increases the reading time considerably.

The Google Dictionary extension for the Google Chrome web browser adds on-page definition look-ups to the Chrome web browser, which terminates those usability issues.

It adds two different look-up modes to the web browser. A left-click on the extension icon in the Chrome address bar opens a small form that can be used to look-up phrases in the browser. Definitions are displayed directly in the same window that expands automatically.

That’s better than using Google Search to display word definitions, but still not as comfortable as the second option the extension offers.

Users can get direct definitions of words by double-clicking them on a website. A double-click on individual words displays their meaning directly in an overlay. Definitions of phrases are not available by default. Users need to go into the extension options to enable the “Display pop-up when I select a word or phrase” option which is triggered by holding down the CTRL key while highlighted words on a web page.

Foreign language words or phrases are automatically translated by the Chrome extension. Non-English speaking users can change the language in the extension options to get definitions in their language if supported by Google.

Google Chrome users can install the Google Dictionary extension directly at the Chrome web store.

Clownfish supports five translation services and dozens of languages. Among the translation services are Google Translate, Yahoo Translate and Bing Translate.

All configuration changes are made with a right-click on the application’s system tray icon and the selection of the setting directly in the context menu. That offers quick changes to the configuration but also problems if more than one setting needs to be changed.

Available for configuration are the translation services that are used for the translation, the from and to languages with options to set the from language to auto detect in some translation services, an option to enable the spell checker and an option to enable text to speech for incoming English messages.

Messages that are written in Skype are automatically translated according to the configuration settings. The translations are displayed in brackets next to the original message. The original message can be hidden in the options as well in case it should not be displayed in the Skype message window.

The translations are not perfect, but this is the case for all automated machine based language translations. Still, most of the time they provide a more or less clear meaning.

Clownfish for Skype is an interesting program, especially for Skype users who often need to chat with business partners, friends or colleagues who have another native language. For that it is unobtrusive and sufficient.

Clownfish is available for Windows operating systems only

A more comfortable option in this case is a translate option directly on Facebook, and Facebook Translate offers exactly this. The Firefox extension is not as flexible as general add-ons that bring Google Translate functionality to all pages on the Internet. Still, the add-on integrates nicely into Facebook and uses the Google Translate api for the translations.

The add-on places a translate link beneath each Facebook status post, in the same line that contains the comment,like and share links.

A click on translate replaces the original text on Facebook with the translated text created by Google Translate. This happens almost instantly and without page reloads.

The translations are not the best, and may make little sense in some cases. Still, some users may feel that this is better than not understanding the status update information at all. The translate link changes to untranslate to replace the translation with the original text again.

The default language that all texts get translate to is English. This can be changed in the add-on’s options. A browser restart is required after making the changes. It is not clear why the restart is needed.

There are several alternatives to Facebook Translate, including the Greasemonkey userscript Google Translate Tooltip which can perform translations on all pages, not just Facebook, a Google Chrome Translate plugin or gTranslate for Firefox. All have in common that they are not restricted to just Facebook.

Facebook Translate for Firefox is available for download from the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

The translation is the only constant when it comes to those third party tools. The main difference is accessibility and the extra features that the developers have added to those apps.

One of the most comfortable options is the Google Translate Tooltip userscript. What does it do? It basically displays a tooltip whenever text is selected in the browser. Hovering the mouse over the tooltip displays the translation right on the page.

google translate

This by default works on every http page on the Internet, and benefits users the most who often receive messages or read textual contents in foreign languages. The userscript works fine on sites such as Twitter, Facebook or Google Mail (after configuring https sites to be included).

As mentioned earlier, the tooltip is displayed on all pages by default, even if those pages are in the native language of the user – or more precisely the default system language. That can quickly become annoying. The userscript thankfully has an option to prevent this from happening by configuring it to only work if the Ctrl key is pressed at the same time.

Once configured this way, Internet users who want to translate text on a page need to press Ctrl, select the text and then the tooltip. If they select text anyway else it will not display the tooltip. This configuration menu can also be used to enable support for https websites.

The options of Google Translate Tooltip hold preferences to select the from and to languages manually. Here it is possible to change the default to translation language English to another language.

Finally, the script offers search options right in the translation tooltip.

google translate search

Links lead to searches on sites such as Google Search, Wikipedia, Youtube or the Urban Dictionary. The tooltip stays on the page until the next left-click on an area outside of it.

Google Translate Tooltip offers fast translations for users who prefer to stay on the page during the translation. The userscript only works in the Firefox web browser, and can be installed on the official userscript website. New users need to remember to install the Greasemonkey extension first, before userscripts can be installed in the browser.

That’s were the free translation software Transmiti comes into play. Transmiti basically enables Google Translate on a system wide level in the Windows operating system.

The functionality becomes available right after starting the standalone executable. It is from that moment on possible to translate text anywhere, by selecting the text and pressing the Windows key on the computer keyboard. It works in Office documents, on websites, and every other program or window, as long as the text is selectable.

google translate system wide

Transmiti displays a always-on-top window with the translated text on keypress. It is possible to move the window around or close it. The language that text gets translated to is defined in the program’s options.

As Lee pointed out, the only gripe that users will have with Transmiti is the Windows hotkey, or more precisely the fact that the hotkey cannot be changed.

The Windows hotkey by default opens the start menu, and it is not available on some mobile computer systems. That’s a problem, and it would make sense to add an option to change the hotkey in the options of the program.

Transmiti can be configured to perform an additional action when the hotkey is pressed. It is either possible to copy the selected text to the Windows clipboard, or to replace it with the translated text. Both settings are completely optional.

translation settings

Some users may prefer to copy and paste text that needs to be translated into the form on the Google Translate website, or upload documents that need translations. That’s a possibility. Transmiti on the other hand accelerates the process, as there is no need to open a web browser, open the Google Translate website and submit the text or document.

Especially users who have to translate multiple items per day will find this solution comfortable enough to replace the manual way of translating text.

Transmiti is available for download at the developer website. The program is fully compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

Up until now however there was no way to translate a document into another language and preserving the original document layout at the same time.

Doc Translator is a free online service that can do that for Microsoft Word (doc, docx and xml), Microsoft Excel (xls and xlsx), Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt and pptx) and generic text documents (txt).

The translation service accepts documents of all sizes. The translation itself is initiated on the Doc Translator website.

It begins by clicking on one of the available document format options which opens a file browser. It is possible to load a different support file instead as the format will be automatically recognized by the translation service.

The title and type of the document are displayed on the next page after the document has been loaded by the service. Doc Translator will identify the language of the original document automatically. Both the original language and the target language can be modified if they are not the correct languages.

A click on the translate button will open a save file as dialog window to save the translated document to the local computer system.

Doc Translator offers an interesting translation service thanks to the preserving of the document layout and the unlimited file size of documents that can be translated.

It is possible to disable translations for specific websites or specific languages when they are encountered. It is furthermore possible to configure the translation service to always translate the language into the default system language.

Languages that the Chrome user speaks can also be added to the web browser. No translation bar is shown for the configured languages.

To add languages to Google Chrome click on the wrench icon in the address bar and select Options from the menu that opens.

Switch to the Under the Hood tab and scroll down until you you find the Change font and language settings button.

Pressing this button opens another window with a language tab. The user can add the spoken languages to this menu.

It appears if this feature is also used to identify impersonating websites but no information are provided on how this is done.

Most commenters find it annoying as it will automatically pop up with no option to make it a manual process which many would prefer. Other Chrome users prefer more configuration options that would allow them to disable the translation for some languages and enable it to translate automatically for others.

The Firefox add-on gTranslator is basically a port of the Google Chrome 5 feature with the difference that the translation has to be initiated manually by the user.

The Firefox add-on places an icon in the status bar of the Internet browser after installation. Clicking that status bar icon will display the Google Translate Bar that resembles the bar found in Google Chrome 5.

The user can select the language that the website should get translated to in the bar before clicking on the Translate link to translate it without reload. This has to be done for every page the user visits on that website. The Google Chrome translate bar contains an option to always translate that language when it is encountered which can be helpful for users who have to visit foreign language websites regularly.

Configuration options to automatically translate languages are not offered by gTranslator yet. The add-on has been added recently to the Firefox add-on repository and it might be that the developer is already at work to add the feature to the add-on.

GTranslator can be downloaded from the official Mozilla Firefox website.

Users who have installed the developer release of Google Chrome might already have noticed that Google has integrated Google Translate into the web browser.

This only becomes apparent when a user visit a website that is displayed in a different language than the computer system’s default language (or the web browser’s language, not sure).

Google Chrome will automatically display a small toolbar below the address bar that offers to translate the website into the default language.

It is possible to change the detected language to another one in case Google Translate detected the wrong language. A click on translate will translate the website to the default system language. If that option is selected the translation toolbar will change telling the user that the website has been translated from the original language into the default system language. Here it is possible to make changes to either the detected language or the language the website has been translated to.

The options button displays different options on the first and second screen. Options on the first screen are provided to either never translate into that language or to never translate that site. Options on the second screen are to set the web browser to always translate the language whenever it is encountered.

The build in translation service is a great addition to the Google Chrome web browser. It is unobtrusive and comfortable. Only an option to disable it completely or to configure it in an initial setup would have been nice.

Like most of Google’s services Google Dictionary is a free online service that can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection. Google would not be Google on the other hand if they would not make use of some of their other web services to make Google Dictionary more than just another dictionary on the Internet.

Google Translate and Web Definitions are the two services that have been integrated into Google Dictionary. This means that Google Dictionary offers dictionaries in dozens of languages and even comes with the option to translate a word or phrase from one language into the other to lockup a definition in a language understood by the user. (e.g. if you see a word or phrase in a language that you do not understand).

Google Dictionary uses a plain design that makes it ideal for mobile use and slow Internet connections.

One interesting feature is the ability of the online dictionary to recognize words. Users might sometimes think a word belongs to a specific language when in fact it belongs to another one. Google Dictionary will display that to the user if it is the case.

Interested users can visit the Google Dictionary website.

Update: Google has retired the frontend of the Google Dictionary service. Users can now get definitions right on Google Search with the help of the define parameter.

One was able to overcome this before by translating the search text into the language first and perform the search for the translated text afterwards. This usually leads to additional translating as the search result pages are also in that language then.

With the announcement of Google Translated Search comes a much needed improvement in this area. Google will be rolling out the translated search feature in the coming days which will then be accessible in the search options on the results pages.

Even better is the fact that Google will not only translate the search phrase but also the search results making it a complete solution to search for results in a foreign language. Except to see the translated search option appear in the left sidebar in the coming days.

Long term users of Google Translate know that it is possible to copy and paste text into the web form at the service right away. There are however other options including the option to paste an url into the form or to upload documents to get them translated.

The new interface is only displaying translated results immediately if text is pasted into the form or if a text document is uploaded using the upload form. Websites on the other hand are still loaded separately with Google Translate controls in the header. The new interface looks a lot cleaner than the old one and we had the impression that everything loaded faster.

Users who want to try the new Google Translate interface can visit the website to do so.

A few settings need to be configured after installation,especially the language the text should be translated to. The software is configured to automatically detect the language of the text that the user wants to translate. This text can be selected with the mouse. A small G icon will appear next to the text. If that icon is pressed the area is expanded automatically and the translation displayed.

Several controls are displayed below the translated text including options to copy the text to the Windows clipboard or to select the languages manually for the translation which comes in handy if the translation service detected the wrong language.

The very same principle can be used in other applications with one difference. The application needs to be added to the Client For Google Translate before the translate options become available there as well. This is done by bringing the application window to the front, right-clicking the system tray icon of Client for Google Translate and selecting to enable the feature in the application.

From then on it is possible to translate text in the selected software program as well. The software client can also be used to translate text directly by copying it into the interface.

Client For Google Translate is a software program for the Windows operating system. It is compatible with most versions including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. A commercial pro version is available as well which adds Wikipedia articles and dictionaries as new features.

Bubble Translate is a translation plugin for the Google Chrome browser. It uses the Google Translate service to provide on-page translations of selected text. It is recommended to configure the plugin after its installation. A click on the T icon in the Chrome status bar will open the settings where the language of the user needs to be set (default is Afrikaans). Other options in that menu include changing the translation hotkey and the color scheme of the translated text.

The default hotkey to translate items on a website is Ctrl. All that it takes to translate part of a website is to press the Ctrl key and select the text that should be translated with the computer mouse. It takes a moment before the translated version of the text (translated into the language selected in the configuration of the extension) shows up in a bubble next to the selected text.

The extension is an early development stage. This could explain that it sometimes took more than one try to get the translation of a selected text in the browser. Bubble Translate for Google Chrome is available at its Google Code project website.

The Skype Translator plugin is using Google Translator to provide automatic translations for Skype conversations. The plugin needs access rights which can be given or denied upon first start of the plugin and Skype.

Once the rights have been given it is possible to chat with contacts using the external interface. The interface consists of a separate chat window with translation options provided for messages that are send and received.

Sending a message with translation enabled will display the translated message to the chat partner. A protocol that is displaying the original and translated message is shown in the same program tab which makes it possible to chat directly from that tab without paying attention to the Skype window at all.

The translated messages that are send will appear in the original Skype window as well. Skype Translator is a plugin for the voip client. The plugin is available for download at the Skype website. It is only compatible with Windows operating systems and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

The Skype plugin Skype Translator has been discontinued. We have covered two third party alternatives in the recent past. Skype Translator and Skype Chat Translator both utilize Google’s Translate Service to translate Skype chats in realtime.

The process is semi-automated. The translate gadget will automatically compare the language of the website with the default language of the visitor’s computer system. If the two match nothing will happen at all. If the two do not match a toolbar will be displayed on top of the website with the option to translate the website into their language.

Installation of the Google translation gadget is simple. Just copy the code from the Google Translate website and paste it into an appropriate file on the web server.

Several aspects of the translation gadget are not clear as of yet as Google has not addressed them. Among them the question if the translated websites will be indexed by Google or if the code interferes with other code on the website. It should also be noted that machine translations are not perfect which makes the translation gadget not suitable for some types of websites.