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.

To install Microsoft Translator download the installer from the Microsoft website and execute it on a local computer system. Make sure Microsoft Office is closed during the installation. The installer will then add Microsoft Translator as the default Office translator automatically for the languages that are supported by it.

The add-on will add a button to the Review ribbon which will translate selected text in a document automatically and display it in the Research pane in Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Translator will automatically detect the language of the selected text. The default language to translate into is English unless the text that has to be translated in English. In this case it is French. Pulldown menus are available to change the target language of the translation on the fly.

A click on Translate Options in the Research pane allows for the selection of the WorldLingo translator for selected languages instead of the Microsoft Translator. Microsoft Translator will work in Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, Visio and Publisher.