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.

While it is possible to use an external service like Google Translate to do the translating, realtime translating in the Skype chat interface is usually the better choice as it is less complicated to use.

STranslator is a free software for Skype that integrates right into the popular voice over IP software. Make sure you have the latest version of Skype installed on the system before you run the installer of the translation software.

STranslator requires that the Java Runtime Environment is installed on the system. When you run it, it will automatically scan the Skype chat and start to add translations whenever different languages are detected. The program uses the default user profile language for this.

Say one of the chat users uses English, while another German. STranslator will automatically add translations to the original messages so that both appear in the Skype interface. Translations will automatically stop if users type in the same language.

It is furthermore possible to stop translations at any time with a right-click on the system tray icon and the selection of Pause from the context menu. Select activate when you want the translations to continue.

The developer has created a short demonstration video that highlights the program’s features.

STranslator runs in the background until you close the application. It works similar in many regards to Google Translator for Skype with the difference that the latter is a plugin for Skype with better integration in the voice over IP software.

Users who are looking for an instant chat translator for Skype may want to take a closer look at STranslator. The software is only available for the Windows operating system. Downloads are provided at the developer website.

Update: The Skype Chat translator is now also available for the Linux operating system.

Quick Translator is a Firefox add-on that can perform fast on-page translations of text. The add-on offers several modes of operation. It can translate selected text, the whole page or text entered into a form.

Probably the most used feature is the ability to translate selected text on a web page. It is possible to highlight a specific word, phrase, sentence or paragraphs and get them translated in no time. The extension displays a small icon next to highlighted text. A click on the icon displays the translation in the lower right corner of the Firefox window.

Translations appear more or less instant. It is possible to change the source language in case it has not been detected correctly. The target language needs to be configured in the add-on’s preferences before first use. It usually picks the right language but it is best to check the preferences anyway. Right-click the icon in the Firefox statusbar and select Preferences from the context menu.

It is possible to select one or multiple target languages between which it is then possible to switch.

Click on Languages and move all languages that you want to translate text to to the right side of the listing. Most users will probably stick to one language here.

Click on the general tab afterwards. Here you find hotkeys that you can use to translate text even faster, change the hotkeys or switch from showing the translate icon to translating selected text right away.

Lastly, you can change the appearance of the add-on. It displays an icon in the status bar and right-click context menu entries. It is possible to hide those entries or add a toolbar icon to the mix.

Quick Translator offers fast on-page translations under Firefox. It is easy to use and with enough options to make it your custom translation tool. It is compatible with all recent versions of the web browser. More information are offered at the project website over at Mozilla.

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.

Skype Translate offers several advantages over Skype Translator, a similar software program which we reviewed earlier this year. The latter used a software client that the user needed to use to write and translate messages. Skype Translate on the other hand runs in the background and works out of the box with the Skype interface making it very comfortable to work with.

The translation service needs to be configured after installation. This is done by selecting the primary language of the user and allowing the application access to Skype so that it can translate the texts. One interesting feature is that Skype Translate will detect the language of the contacts automatically (which can be changed if incorrect) so that all texts that are posted in another language get translated into the detected or selected language.

Skype Translate supports dozens of languages including English, German, French, Spanish and lesser used languages like Finnish, Czech or Welsh. The program is by far the most comfortable translation service for the voice over IP software Skype. It is compatible with most Windows operating systems and can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

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.

The Google Translator Toolkit makes this easier as it provides an interface to upload documents in the formats doc, txt, rtf, odt or html which get then translated by the same translation engine once they have been uploaded. It is furthermore possible to translate websites or Wikipedia and Knol pages.

The translated document can be shared, saved in the account, printed or edited. It is furthermore possible to add comments and use find and replace to replace text quickly in the uploaded document. One advantage of the Google Translator Toolkit is that previous translations are accessible in a Google Docs like interface from where they can be accessed at anytime.

The Google Translator Toolkit is available for users with a Google account.

The Google Translate software client is a software program for the Windows operating system that can automatically translate text that is marked by the user. It is not limited to the web browser or any other application. It will automatically recognize selected text and provide a translation for that text in its interface.

The user is asked to select a main language during setup which will be the language that the other languages get translated to. The translation tool will display the original text in the upper part of its window and the translated text in the lower parts. It is possible to switch the source and target languages manually if needed.

The google Translate software client can also be used by dragging and dropping text into its interface which will also be translated immediately if the automatic recognition is enabled. A handful of options are available that allow the user to change the design of the application and the way the text gets translated.

The software program was tested with various applications including the Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer web browser, the email client Thunderbird, text documents and Microsoft Office Word. It worked with all of the applications and it is likely that it supports additional programs as well.

What most users do not know is that Google expanded the service recently offering not only on the fly translations but also translated search results. The new feature is called Translated Search and it works the following way.

The user enters a search term in a language of his choosing, picks his language and the language of the websites that he wants to search. Google will automatically translate the words that the user entered and perform a search on the search inventory that meet the locale requirement.

The search results will be processed and translated before they are displayed on the user’s computer screen. The results are divided into two columns. The left column contains the translated preview of the website and the right the original text.

A click on a result in the left column will load the translated version of the website while a click on the right will load the original version. This feature is excellent for users who want to search in a language that they do not speak.

The free version of this extension comes with support for the languages English, German and French and offers support to add additional dictionaries in csv format. The commercial version which is available for roughly 5€ supports the popular .dict format as well.

Translations are obviously available in both directions but those have to be selected separately. If you come upon a text that mixes languages you have to switch. Say you got a text that uses German and English words. You have to select if you want to translate German into English or English into German from the toolbar and need to switch if you encounter words in the second language.

Translations work pretty well. The word has to be clicked on and the translation will appear instantly in the toolbar along with the selected word in the original language.

The extension does have some shortcomings that are dealt with in the commercial version. It’s definitely easier to add .dict files than .csv dictionaries. The free version does not recognize phrases and has no means to add new words from within the application. It still might be helpful if you regularly work with German, English and French documents and are not fluent in at least one of the languages.

The extension works well with the latest Open Office 3 beta and all supported operating systems.

I’m not talking about business meetings where translators make sure everything is translated as it should be.Google Talk offers a solution if you want to chat with someone whose language you do not speak. The solution is a translation bot that translates what you type into another language.

The quality of the translation looks similar to that of Google Translate which means that the translated sentences will not have perfect grammar and sometimes words that are out of context. Most of the time though the native speaker will understand what you wanted to say.

Bots are invited as friends in Google Talk and then added to a group chat where they translate messages that you type. The email for the bots depends on a two letter country code, currently 24 bots are available:

Arabci > English (ar2en)
German > English (de2en)
German > French (de2fr)
Greek > English (el2en)
English > Arabic (en2ar)
English > German (en2de)
English > Greek (en2el)
English > Spanish (en2es)
English > French(en2fr)
English > Italian (en2it)
English > Japanese (en2ja)
English > Korean (en2ko)
English > Dutch (en2nl)
English > Russian (en2ru)
English > Chinese (en2zh)
Spanish > English (es2en)
French > German (fr2de)
French > English (fr2en)
Italian > English (it2en)
Japanese > English (ja2en)
Korean > English (ko2en)
Dutch > English(nl2en)
Russian > English (ru2en)
Chinese > English(zh2en)

The full email of the bot that you want to invite depends on the 5 char code and is followed by @bot.talk.google.com. If you want to invite the English to Chinese bot you invite en2zh@bot.talk.google.com for instance.

The add-on is configured to use Google Translation as the default Translation service. You may change this behavior if you prefer Yahoo Babelfish, PROMPT, Altavista, FreeTranslation or IM Translator. The add-on places an icon in the status bar. Right-Clicking that icon opens a menu with all the available translation options and a link to the preferences.

The add-on can be configured to translate the website in the current tab, a new window, a new tab or the sidebar. You may also select to add a quick translation option when the icon in the status bar is left clicked. You have to select the languages for quick translation by yourself.

The translator add-on is an excellent time saver if you have been using translation services before. Sure, you do not necessarily need the add-on to translate the websites. You could also do it manually by visiting the translation service and pasting the url to translate into the form field.