Forum Discussion
The best way to translate multiple documents at once?
As far as I know, AI tools is more recommended than traditional translate service for document translation nowadays. You can use ChatGPT to translate multiple documents at once, but there are important technical and practical limitations, especially regarding very long documents and file formatting.
Token and Size Limits: While you can upload files directly in certain paid versions of ChatGPT, the model has a maximum context window. For text-heavy files, there's a cap of approximately 2 million tokens per file. If your document exceeds this, the AI will only process the beginning, and the translation will be incomplete.
Loss of Formatting: The most significant drawback is that ChatGPT often struggles to preserve complex formatting from the original file. When you upload a document, the AI extracts the raw text for translation. The resulting output, which is a stream of translated text in the chat window, will typically lose the original layout, tables, images, headers, and specific fonts. You would need to manually reconstruct the formatting in a new document.
Need for Manual Segmentation: For very long documents that exceed the token limit, or if you are using the free version, the most reliable method is to copy and paste the text in smaller sections and then prompt the AI to translate each section sequentially. This helps maintain accuracy but is a tedious, manual process