Translate a PDF
Put a document into another language, page by page, and set the result on paper.
What this does
A translation that comes back as one wall of prose is not usable: you have the original open beside it and need to know which paragraph is which. So the pages are translated as pages — page four of the translation holds page four of the original — and the headings, lists and paragraphs inside each one are kept. What you get is a PDF you can actually read, with the Markdown it was set from beside it for anyone who wants to edit the wording first.
What it will not do
Every tool here says what it cannot do, in its own words, before you rely on it.
- The translation keeps the document’s pages and its headings, lists and paragraphs. It does not keep its typography: the result is set fresh on new pages, and page 4 may run longer or shorter than page 4 of the original.
- Text inside a picture is a picture and is not translated. Run OCR over a scan first, and the words it adds will be.
- A form, its filled-in values and any signature on it are not carried across. This produces a readable document, not a working copy of the original.
- Setting the result on paper needs a font that can draw the language you translated into. Where there is none you get the Markdown rather than a page of empty boxes.
- A document longer than what may be sent is translated as far as it was sent, and the pages that did not go are listed.
Questions people ask
Does it keep the layout?
It keeps the structure — the pages, the headings, the lists, the paragraphs — and sets them freshly on new pages. It is not a copy of the original with the words swapped, because a German sentence is not the length of its English one.
Can I fix the wording before it becomes a PDF?
Yes. Ask for Markdown instead, edit it, and put it through Markdown to PDF when you are happy with it.
What exactly is sent to the provider?
The text on the screen under “what will be sent”, and nothing else of your document. It is not a summary of the request — it is the request. Nothing is sent until you press send, and the page cannot send it before showing it to you, because the code refuses.
What does this cost?
Pagecraft charges nothing and never will. Your provider charges you for what you send it, at their rates, on your own account — and you are shown the token count and an estimate in dollars before you send anything. A model on your own machine costs nothing at all.
Do I have to pay for an API key?
No. Install Ollama or LM Studio, run a model on your own computer, and point Pagecraft at it: no key, no bill, and your document never leaves the device. That path is first-class here rather than a degraded fallback.