Illustration of a person standing on a smartphone with various country flags representing language translation services.

“Translating PowerPoint presentations”

Prompted, overseen, and edited by Eduardo Mayorga, MD.

Consider the following software options to translate both text on slides and notes in a PowerPoint presentation: (I use 1 & 2.)

1. Microsoft PowerPoint (Built-in Feature)

  • How? Open your PowerPoint file → Select text → Go to the Review tab → Click Translate.

  • Pros: Free, built-in, supports many languages.

  • Cons: Requires manual translation for each slide.

2. Google Translate + Google Slides

  • How? Upload PowerPoint to Google Slides → Use a Google Translate add-on. (I recommend using “Slide Translato”)

  • Pros: Easy to use, but you must use the paid version for more than 3 slides.

  • Cons: Might slightly change formatting.

3. Automatic PowerPoint Translators (Paid)

(I have not tested any of these.)

  • Pairaphrase: AI-powered translation for PowerPoint files.

  • SYSTRAN: Enterprise-level automatic translation.

  • Smartcat: CAT tool that supports PowerPoint translations.

  • Lokalise: Localization tool that integrates with PowerPoint.

4. Custom Script (for Automated Bulk Translation)

I have not tested this.

  • If you want bulk translation of slides and notes, a Python script using OpenAI's API, DeepL, or Google Translate API can extract text, translate it, and replace it in PowerPoint.