How to translate an EPUB or PDF book

Which file to send

Librolingua accepts five formats for a manuscript: DOCX (Word), ODT (LibreOffice), EPUB, Markdown and plain text, up to 40 MB. The PDF is not on the list, and that is deliberate. If you have both an EPUB and a PDF of your book, send the EPUB. If you have a Word file, a Word file is just as good.

The rule of thumb is simple: send the file you would use to edit the book, not the file you would use to print it. A source file knows what is a paragraph, a heading, an italic or a footnote. A print file only knows where things sit on a page.

EPUB: accepted as it is

An EPUB is, in essence, a package of structured text, so it keeps what a translation needs. When you send one, the translation keeps the structure of the book: headings and chapters, bold, italics, underline, small caps, footnotes, images, quotations, lists, verse and scene breaks stay in place in every language. With a DOCX, an ODT or an EPUB, you also receive your own file, translated: only the text changes, and the fonts, colors, type sizes, styles and images stay yours.

A few checks before you send it:

• Open it in an ebook reader or in Kindle Previewer and check that the chapters are properly marked, because the headings drive the structure of the translation.
• Text that is part of an image, such as a chart, a map legend or a stylized title, is not text and cannot be translated. Plan to redraw those images.
• If you produced the EPUB from a Word file, you can send the Word file instead, and it is often the better source.

PDF: why it has to be converted first

A PDF stores the position of each line of text on a page. It no longer stores paragraphs, headings or italics as such. When software reads a PDF, it has to guess where a paragraph ends, which lines belong to a header or a footer, and whether a word cut at the end of a line is one word or two. Translation depends on paragraphs, because the text is translated paragraph by paragraph, with the context around it. A text that arrives cut into lines, with page numbers in the middle of sentences, produces a poor translation, and the structure of your book would have to be rebuilt afterwards.

A PDF converted to Word by character recognition can also yield garbled characters. That is why we ask for the conversion to be done, and checked, on your side.

How to convert a PDF into a usable file

Start with the origin of the PDF. If you made it yourself from a word processor or a layout program, export again from the original as DOCX, ODT or EPUB. This is by far the best route and it takes a minute.

If the original is lost, you can convert the PDF:

1. Word. Open the PDF in Word. Word offers to convert it into an editable document; then save it as DOCX.
2. A free alternative. LibreOffice can open a PDF and export it to ODT or DOCX, with a more basic result.
3. A scanned PDF is only a set of images. It needs character recognition (OCR) before anything else, and the result needs a careful read.

Whichever route you choose, check the converted file before sending it. Look for lines broken in the middle of sentences, running heads and page numbers that ended up in the text, words split by hyphens at line ends, and chapter titles that lost their heading style. Fix those with find-and-replace and the heading styles of your word processor; ten minutes here saves a lot of noise in the translation.

DRM: you translate your own book

Some EPUBs and PDFs are protected by DRM, the copy protection applied by a store or a lending platform. A file that is locked cannot be read by our system, and we do not offer to unlock one. More to the point, a translation is a new work that depends on the rights of the original. Translate your own book, or a book for which you hold the translation rights, and check that the contract with your publisher, if you have one, leaves them with you.

If your book is on sale in a store and you no longer have the source file, the right route is to ask your publisher for it, to download it from your author dashboard if the store allows it, or to rebuild the manuscript from your own working files.

What you get back

For every language you order, you receive:

• your file translated, in its own format (Word, ODT, EPUB, Markdown or text), with its formatting, editable just like the original;
• a DOCX to read and correct, and an EPUB for the ebook, when your manuscript is in another format.

Every translation goes through the same five-pass editorial chain: style sheet, translation, cross-review, arbitration and final check. The three levels differ in how powerful the translator is and how deep the review goes. If a passage seems wrong, you can report it from your tracking page within 30 days of delivery.

What it costs, with an example

The price is per 1,000 words, all taxes included: €0.50 at the Essential level, €1 at Premium and €2 at Excellence. Translation orders have a €20 minimum. For a single language, here are the totals for books of three lengths:

Ordering several languages at once lowers the price: 7% off for two languages, 10% for three, 12% for four and 15% from five. A 60,000-word book at Premium in two languages comes to €111.60 instead of €120. The exact price of your file is shown before you pay, based on the word count of your manuscript. To see the quality before you commit, request a free sample: the first 2,000 words of your book, translated by the same chain at the Essential level.

Each paragraph goes through five passes: style sheet, translation, independent review, arbitration and automatic checks. Having a native reader go over the text before you publish remains good practice, as with any translation.

FAQ