You've got a product catalogue, a set of technical datasheets, or a batch of brochures that need to go out in 8 or more languages, and there's no localisation department to hand it to. It sits with you, alongside the rest of your marketing work. This guide is for that situation: what document translation software actually does, which type fits a team like yours, and how to translate the specific files you're likely working with, InDesign, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, without a redesign session at the end of it.
In this guide
- What is document translation software?
- Who this software is actually built for
- Core features to look for
- What changes when you use it
- Desktop vs cloud-based: which fits a small marketing team
- How to translate InDesign, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files
- Frequently asked questions
What is document translation software?
Document translation software is a platform that manages the full translation of a file, catalogue pages, a datasheet, a slide deck, and hands it back to you in the same format you started with, rather than as a block of translated text you have to paste back in and reformat yourself.
Before tools like this existed, most marketing teams ran translation through a spreadsheet, an email thread with a freelancer, or a copy-paste round trip through a machine translation tool. That works for a single short document. It breaks down fast once you're managing 8+ languages, several file types, and more than one translator, because nothing keeps the terminology, the formatting, or the project status consistent across all of it.
The best current platforms are centralised: one place to upload a file, invite translators, track where each language stands, and get the finished document back in its original format. For a marketing team without a localisation background, that centralisation is the actual value, not a longer feature list.
Who this software is actually built for
This guide is written for the marketing manager or export manager at a mid-sized manufacturing company who owns the translation problem because nobody else does. If that's you: you're likely translating product catalogues, technical datasheets, and brochures into 8 or more target languages a year, briefing designers on InDesign files, and doing it without a dedicated localisation team. Translation sits alongside your other responsibilities. It doesn't have its own budget line or its own specialist.
Software built for this situation is different from software built for professional translators or large localisation departments. A translator's primary tool is usually a CAT tool (computer-assisted translation) built around linguistic precision and industry-specific terminology databases. An enterprise localisation platform is built around vendor management, workflow automation, and API integrations for teams with dedicated localisation engineers.
Neither is designed for you: a small team, an irregular but recurring translation need, and no plan to hire a localisation specialist. What you need is software simple enough to run without training, that still gives your translators a proper shared workspace instead of an email chain.
Core features to look for
Whatever platform you're evaluating, these are the features that actually change how a project goes for a team like yours.
1. Project management. One place to see every current and past project, organised by market, document, or status, with control over who can access what. Instead of tracking a catalogue's German, French, and Italian versions across three separate email threads, you see all three in one project.
2. Translation Memory. Every confirmed translation is saved automatically and reused the next time the same or a similar sentence appears. Update a 60-page catalogue after a product line change, and the sentences that haven't changed don't need retranslating. This is what makes your fifth project faster than your first, not just individually but as a compounding effect across every future project.
3. AI and machine translation, used as a starting point. Most platforms connect to an AI or machine translation engine, DeepL, Google Translate, ChatGPT, or similar, to pre-fill a first draft that a human translator then reviews and corrects. This isn't a replacement for the translator; it gives them a starting point instead of a blank page, which is where most of the time saving actually comes from.
4. A shared translation editor. A web-based interface combining a spell-checker, the machine translation suggestion, and your accumulated Translation Memory in one screen, so a translator works in the software rather than switching between five different tools and a reference spreadsheet.
5. A Glossary. A shared, per-language list of approved terms, so your product name, technical specifications, and brand terminology stay identical whether the translator working on the German catalogue is the same person who did the French one last year, or someone new.
What changes when you use it
Less manual coordination. With Translation Memory and a shared editor, your translators see only what's new or changed in an update, not the whole document again. You're not paying to translate the same sentence twice, and you're not manually copying finished text back into a design file.
A faster path to a finished document. Because the software handles formatting, organising the file into translatable segments, and pulling in matching Translation Memory automatically, most of the manual retyping, copy-pasting, and reformatting a spreadsheet-based process requires goes away.
More consistent output, project after project. With a Glossary and Translation Memory doing the consistency work, your translators spend their time on the sentences that are actually new, not re-deciding how to phrase something that was already translated correctly six months ago.
Desktop vs cloud-based: which fits a small marketing team
Desktop translation software runs locally on one computer. It works without an internet connection and isn't affected by a service provider's server issues, which matters for some technical or regulated environments. The trade-offs: it takes up storage, performance depends on the machine it's installed on, you generally need a separate licence per device, and updates are manual rather than automatic. Examples include SDL Trados Studio, OmegaT, and memoQ.
Cloud-based translation software runs in a browser, with no installation. Updates and backups happen automatically, and anyone you invite, a translator, a colleague, a designer, gets access through a login rather than a licence key on their machine. The main trade-off is that it needs an internet connection, and it carries the same general data security considerations as any cloud-based tool. Examples include Redokun, Smartcat, and Smartling.
For a marketing team without a localisation department or in-house IT support, cloud-based is usually the practical choice: nothing to install, nothing for someone else to maintain, and a new team member or translator is working within the platform, not waiting on a software rollout. Most teams are translating their first project within an hour of signing up.
For the fuller buyer's-guide comparison across specific tools by category, see our guide to translation software.
How to translate the specific files you're actually working with
Most guides to translation software stop at the general comparison above. The part that actually determines whether a project goes smoothly is the file type itself, because a catalogue in InDesign, a datasheet in Word, a sales deck in PowerPoint, and a pricing sheet in Excel each break in different ways if the software doesn't handle them properly.
InDesign
InDesign is where most translation projects for manufacturing marketing teams go wrong, and it's the file type worth getting right before anything else. A catalogue or brochure built in InDesign carries paragraph styles, linked images, text variables, and layout rules that a generic translation tool has no way to preserve. Copy the text out into a spreadsheet or a machine translation tool, and you get the words back with none of that: broken styles, images that no longer line up, and text that overflows its box the moment German or Finnish runs 20% longer than the English original.
Redokun is an Adobe Technology Partner, and InDesign support is the product's strongest technical difference from a generic translation tool: paragraph and character styles carry through untouched, linked files stay linked, and the document comes back as an IDML file ready to reopen in InDesign, with the layout intact rather than needing a redesign pass first. That's the specific problem I built Redokun to solve. I'm an InDesign expert, and I started building Redokun after facing a 60-page catalogue that needed translating into 35 languages by hand.
If you're setting up an InDesign file for translation for the first time, see our guide to translating an InDesign file, which covers paragraph styles, linked files, and the most common ways layout breaks during translation, and how to prevent it before you start the project rather than fixing it after.
Word
Word's built-in translator handles plain text reasonably well, but it doesn't reliably account for text styles, SmartArt diagrams, or the layout of a multi-column technical datasheet. Formatting is the recurring failure point: headers lose their style, a table shifts, or an image caption ends up in the wrong place once translated.
For a datasheet or technical document, a document translation platform keeps the original structure intact, styles, tables, and embedded objects, so the translated Word file opens looking like the source, not like it needs a formatting pass before it can be sent to a distributor. See our full guide to translating a Word document and optimising Word documents before you start a project.
PowerPoint
Translating a PowerPoint deck by hand means going slide by slide, which gets slow fast once you're past a handful of slides with charts, diagrams, or embedded images carrying their own text. Text boxes are also unforgiving about length: a French or German phrase that runs longer than the English original can push text outside its box or overlap another element on the slide.
The fix is the same principle as InDesign: the software should extract the translatable text from each slide, keep every visual element exactly where it was, and hand the deck back ready to present, not ready to be reformatted. See our guide to translating a PowerPoint file.
Excel
Spreadsheets bring a different problem: formulas and functions that don't always survive being run through a translation tool, and cell formatting that a straight copy-paste doesn't preserve. A pricing sheet or a specifications table needs the numbers, formulas, and structure to come back exactly as they went in, with only the labelled text translated.
See our guide to translating an Excel file for how to prepare a spreadsheet before starting a project so formulas and formatting survive the round trip.
Other formats worth knowing about
Beyond the four document types above, most platforms, Redokun included, also handle SRT subtitle files (for reaching an audience beyond your primary market with video content), XML and HTML files (structured content where only specific text should be translated, not the surrounding markup), and Adobe FrameMaker files (for longer technical manuals). These come up less often for a typical manufacturing marketing team than InDesign, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, but the same principle applies: the structure should survive the translation, not just the words.
Frequently asked questions
What is translation software?
Translation software is a platform that manages a document translation project end to end, keeping the original file's formatting intact, storing past translations for reuse, and giving translators a shared workspace instead of an email thread.
Is AI translation good enough on its own for a product catalogue or datasheet?
On its own, no. Machine translation gives a fast first draft, but a manufacturing catalogue's product names, technical specifications, and brand terminology need a human translator reviewing against a Glossary to stay accurate and consistent. The right role for AI is speeding up the first pass, not replacing the review.
Do I need a localisation team to use translation software?
No. Document translation software built for marketing teams, Redokun included, is designed for the opposite situation: a small team managing translation alongside other responsibilities, with no dedicated localisation function and no plan to build one.
What's the difference between translation software and a translation agency?
An agency does the human translation work for you, typically over 3 to 4 weeks for a catalogue-sized project, at an agency markup. Translation software gives you and your existing translators, whether that's an agency, freelancers, or an in-house reviewer, a shared platform to work faster and more consistently across projects. The two aren't mutually exclusive: many teams use software to manage translators they already work with.
Can translation software handle InDesign files without breaking the layout?
The best InDesign-specific tools can. Look for a platform that's an Adobe Technology Partner or has documented, tested support for paragraph styles and linked files specifically, since generic translation software without that support will usually return text with the layout broken.
Getting started
If you have one project in front of you, a catalogue update, a single-market datasheet, Project Pass covers up to 5 documents including InDesign files, with AI translation included, for a flat price and no subscription.
If translation is a recurring part of your work, several projects a year across multiple markets, a free trial of the Workspace Plan is the better starting point: it's built for ongoing use, and everything you set up during the trial, your Glossary, your Translation Memory, your translators' accounts, carries forward if you continue.
For more on running the full project once your files are ready, see what a well-run translation project looks like for a small marketing team, and for keeping terminology consistent across every market, see our guide to building a multilingual glossary.
