Google Articles

Article / Updated 11-04-2022

Listen to the article:Download audio Want to translate a website to English or another foreign language? Google Translate can help you with that. And it’s not just single web pages, either. You can browse an entire website in the chosen language, and even change languages as you browse. You can also use Google Translate on your iOS or Android mobile device. Like other online translation tools, Google Translate isn’t perfect. It does have a good reputation for accuracy, but it does make mistakes. So use it with caution. It should work fine with casual browsing of websites — for example, if you want to read a website that is in Portuguese — but be very careful in relying on Google Translate for anything official. To translate an entire website using Google Translate, follow these steps and see Figure 1 for reference: Open a web browser and go to translate.google.com. You don’t need a Google account to access it, because it’s free to all. In the text box on the left, type in the entire URL (including the http://) of the website you want to view. On the right, choose the language you want to see the website in. Click on the highlighted URL. The translated website appears (see Figure 2). You can browse the entire website in that language by clicking links on the site — as long as you stay within the Google Translate user interface. The Translate toolbar at the top enables you to do a couple of other things: From the language drop-down menu at the top of the page, you can change the translation language on the fly. Using the drop-down menu at the top-right of the page, you can toggle back and forth between the translated website and the site in its original language. You may wonder why some words and phrases are not translated. Google Translate translates only the actual text on a page. Any text that appears in an image is not translated. That’s why, in Figure 2, the titles in the book cover images are not translated; they are images.

Article / Updated 10-19-2022

Google Translate doesn’t just translate words and phrases for you; it can also translate entire documents, such as plain text and rich-text documents, Microsoft Word documents, HTML, and even translate PDFs. (It also translates entire websites.) The file-size limit for translating documents (as stated in Google’s FAQs) is 1MB. However, you may have success with larger documents. After all, it doesn’t hurt to try. Keep in mind, the larger the document, the longer the translation will take. To use Google Translate to translate an entire document, follow these steps and see the figure below for reference: Open a Web browser and go to translate.google.com. You don’t need a Google account to access it, because it’s free to all. In the top left area of your screen, click the Documents button. Click Browse to navigate to a document on your hard drive that you want to translate. At the top left of the window in which your document appears, choose the language that the document is already in — for example, English. On the right, choose the language you want the document translated into — for example, French. Click Translate. The translation appears in a blank browser window. If you hover over each line, you can see the original English text that it was translated from. If you think the translation is incorrect, you can change it ― just hover your cursor over a line of the translation and click the Contribute a Better Translation link. Type your translation into the text box and click Contribute. Your translation is submitted to Google Translate. To use the translated text, simply copy and paste it from the browser window into a new document. Just like other online translation tools, Google Translate is far from perfect. It does have a good reputation for accuracy, but it does make mistakes. So use it with caution. It may work fine in casual situations — for example, if you’re translating a love poem into another language for Valentine’s Day. But if you rely on it for translating official business documents, be very careful. It’s probably better to pay for a reputable translation when business is on the line.

Article / Updated 06-23-2022

If you have your own website, you can use the Google Translate extension to automatically have your website translated into more than 90 languages. So, there’s no need to have multiple versions of your website created. Google Translate requires code to be placed on every page of your site, so you need some website know-how to do this. If you have a small website, you may be able to add the code to every page. However, if it’s a large site, you’ll want to use some kind of template to place the code on every page, depending on the platform your website is on. Here’s how to add Google Translate to your site: In a web browser, go to translate.google.com. At the bottom of the page, click Website Translator. On your first time visiting the Website Translator, you see a page asking you to add your website. Click the blue Add to Your Website Now button. Type in the URL of your site. For example, www.dummies.com. Choose the language your site is in, such as English. Click Next. Choose whether you want your site translated into All Languages or Specific Languages. If you choose Specific Languages, you see a list in which you can check the languages you want. Under Display Mode, choose how you want the Website Translator banner to appear on your site. Clicking each radio button shows how the box will display. Under Advanced, decide whether to check these options: Automatically display translation banner: If your site is in English, and someone who has their browser set to display French, then the translation banner automatically appears. The banner won’t appear for people whose language is the same as your site’s. Your page has content in multiple languages: Check this box if your site contains different languages, so that the plugin knows to expect content in different languages. Track translation data using Google Analytics: If you use Google Analytics to monitor the traffic on your site, you can view data on the usage of the plugin on your site. When you check that box, you will need to provide your Google Analytics property ID number, such as UA-55555-55. Click Get Code. You’ll get two pieces of code that you need to place on your site. The first piece of code, which is the tag, goes in the header (that is, between the tags) of your HTML pages. The second piece of code, which is in and tags, goes where you want the translation banner to appear on your pages. This code determines what the translation banner looks like and how it behaves. <p class="Warning">How you place the code on your site depends largely on the platform you use. Some platforms, like WordPress, make it easy to place code on all pages of the site. However, if you’re not sure how to do this, you should seek out someone with website know-how to help you out. Otherwise, you could mess up the appearance of your pages.</p>

Article / Updated 09-13-2021

If you and your family want to start using a common calendar to keep your schedules in sync, view multiple calendars on the same screen, and use your mobile devices to view, create, and modify appointments on the go and have them sync with your main Google calendar, then Google makes this process fairly easy. It also uses some new features that make updating your calendar from anywhere quite simple. Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/BernardaSv The first step is getting and sharing Google calendars: Head to the Google Calendar page. Either sign in to your current calendar or create a new one. Once you're done, click the Settings menu (little gear icon) at the top of your screen and select the Calendar tab. Click the link under the Sharing head to see your sharing options. You can make the calendar public to everybody, but you don't have to — just enter the e-mail addresses of the people you do want to view the calendar. You can also give each person the ability to read or modify your calendar. Click Add Person when you're done. Add as many as you want. When you're done, click Save. Each person will get a link to the calendar. Once your Google calendar is set and shared, and you've got everybody's calendar links, you can set up a single view to view multiple calendars on the same screen, instead of switching from link to link. Sign in to your Google Calendar and look to the left side of the page. Under the heading of Other Calendars, if you don’t see the calendars you've been invited to share, then click the Add link to enter the e-mail addresses associated with those calendars you'd like to see. For the sake of convenience, make these calendars different colors so you can tell all of the appointments apart. Just click the down arrow next to the calendar to choose a color. Once you've shared all of the calendars, you can use your mobile devices to view, create, and modify appointments on the go and have them sync with your main Google calendar.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

If you do a lot of translating of documents, Google has something called the Google Translator Toolkit, which can help you organize and edit your translations. It uses the Google Translate engine, which searches the Internet for accurate translations and applies them to your documents. When you upload a document to be translated, the toolkit automatically translates and saves the document for you. Then, you can open the translation and edit it. Google Translator Toolkit, contrary to what the name kind of implies, is not software that you download and install on your computer. It’s a web-based application, just like Google Drive or Gmail, which lives on the Web. You have to use through your Web browser. The main advantage is that you can access the toolkit from any computer, whether you’re at work, at home, or at the library. When you upload a document, Google gives you the option to purchase a translation of the document from one of its partners. Consider this very carefully. Your document is translated for free by Google Translate when you upload, so don’t think it hasn’t been translated. Google’s translations are okay for casual use, so you don’t really need pay for a translation. However, because Google Translate is not perfect, you may want to purchase a translation for something official or business related. It’s your call, though. Upload a document to translate Here’s how to get started with Google Translator Toolkit (see Figure 1 for reference): In a Web browser, go to translate.google.com. At the bottom of the page, click Translator Toolkit. Log in to the Google account you want to use with the Translator Toolkit. On the Welcome screen, type in your first and last name and click Continue. You then see the Translator Toolkit, which looks a lot like Google’s other web-based applications, like Gmail and Drive. To upload a document to translate, click the red Upload button. Click Add Content to Translate and choose Upload File. On the right is a list of file types that you can upload. Click Browse and find the file on your hard drive that you want to upload. Choose the language you want to translate the document into. Click Next. The document is uploaded. You’re given the option to purchase a translation from another company. Click No Thanks to allow Google Translate to handle the translation. The document appears in your list of active translations. Click on the document to see the original and translated text. Figure 1: Google Translator Toolkit. Additional input options Not only can you upload documents, but you can also choose a few other ways to add content for Google Translator Toolkit to translate: Input URL: When you choose this option, you can type in or copy and paste a URL of a Web page, which saves that translated page in your active translations. Keep in mind that it will only translate actual text on the page; text that appears in images will not be translated. Input text: Choosing this option gives you a text box to type or copy and paste text into, just like on the main Google Translate site. The benefit of doing this here is that the translation will be saved in your toolkit. Input a Wikipedia article: If, for some reason, you want to translate a Wikipedia article, copy and paste the URL of the article. This may not be the most useful of options, because Wikipedia itself offers its articles in a multitude of languages. Pick a YouTube video: This option enables you to pick a video from your YouTube library to translate.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

If you need to be able to translate words or phrases from one language to another, Google Translate can be a helpful tool. It’s not like an English-to-Some-Other-Language dictionary that contains the words of one language and their corresponding translations. Rather, Google Translate takes the word or phrase that your type and then searches the Internet for the best translation from the billions of expertly translated documents out there. Nearly instantly, it provides you with that search result in the form of a translation. Just like other online translation tools, Google Translate is far from perfect. It does have a good reputation for accuracy, but it does make mistakes — or rather, it returns inaccurate translation search results. So you’ll want to use it with caution. It’ll probably work fine in casual situations, such as ordering dinner in a different language in a restaurant, but if you rely on it for official business communications, be very careful. To do a basic translation using Google Translate on your computer, follow these steps: Open a Web browser and go to translate.google.com. You don’t need a Google account to access it, because it’s free to all. On the left, choose the language you’re translating from. It shows you buttons for three popular languages, or you can choose a language from the drop-down menu. In the text box on the left, type in the word or phrase you want to translate. On the right, choose the language you want the word or phrase translated into. Click Translate. The translation appears in the text box on the right (see Figure 1). The icons at the bottom of the text box enable you to do a few things with the word or phrase: Click the Star icon to add the word or phrase to your personal Phrasebook. You have to be logged in to your Google account for this. Click the Select All icon to copy and paste the word or phrase into another document. Click the Speaker icon to listen to the pronunciation of the word or phrase in that language. To see other translations of the same word or phrase, all you have to do is choose a different language on the right. Google Translate is not a substitute for learning fluency in a language. If you still want to learn to speak Spanish, French, or Chinese, you still have to take language classes, study hard, and practice. But it can be a useful tool if you quickly need to translate a word or phrase, especially when you’re on the go. Figure 1: Google Translate in action.