Google Docs Adds Integrated Translation

Google is making the most of its translation technology by introducing it to more and more of its products. The latest to take advantage of it is Google Docs. Users can now translate documents from inside the editor. There are 53 languages to choose from, but other than the convenience, the feature doesn’t add anything to the quality of the translations above the standard Google Translate.

“You can now translate your documents in the new editor into one of the 53 Google Docs languages by selecting Tools -> Translate document.... From there, you can create a translated copy of the document by choosing a title for the translated document and selecting the language you want to translate into,” Lily Xia, Software Engineer at Google, wrote.

The feature is already live and you should see it in all documents created with the revamped document editor. Using it is simple enough, Docs will ask you for a title for the translated document and the language to translate it to. The quality of the translation will vary and don’t expect any wonders. But if all you need is to get a sense of a document in a foreign language or send a copy of your writings in someone’s native language, to serve more as a draft, the translation feature does the job.

Along with this new feature, Google is introducing another small change that some are really going to appreciate, the possibility to use standard quotes rather than the smartquotes that Docs uses by default. For those who specifically need to use quotes in their documents, for publishing, it’s a great addition.

"When you type a quote character (') in Google Docs we automatically make it a smartquote (‘) which indicates its direction. If you don’t want a smart quote, you can press Ctrl Z (Cmd Z on a Mac) after you type it and the smartquote will become a regular quote. We’ll be adding a preference soon that lets you permanently disable smartquotes," Xia added.