Translate a scanned equipment manual or parts catalog. Tables, part numbers and drawings stay on the page where a technician looks for them.
Translating something else? Browse every document type — certificates, records, statements and transcripts.
Manuals travel with the machine, in the language of the factory that built it: a lathe from Japan, a pump from Germany, a packaging line from China. The people who need them are the technicians, buyers and maintenance crews who install it, service it and reorder its parts somewhere else. A manual is mostly structure: numbered steps, warning boxes, specification tables, exploded views keyed to a parts list. A translation that turns all that into running text loses the part you needed. Reglyph translates the scan page by page and sets the English back into the same layout.
In the EU, machinery has to come with instructions in the official language of the country where it's used, and when the manufacturer doesn't supply that translation, the importer has to provide one. From 20 January 2027 the new Machinery Regulation lets each member state set the language and allows digital instructions under conditions. These rules judge the result, not the method, and none of them certifies a tool's output: a translation that ships with a machine is the shipper's responsibility, so have the safety text checked against the original.
The situations people most often bring technical manuals to us for — each one keeps the original layout, seals and tables.
Anything from a 20-page quick-start guide to service manuals and parts catalogs of several hundred pages. Each upload takes up to 50 pages and 100 MB, so split a long manual at chapter breaks and keep each parts list in the same part as the drawings it refers to. In recent jobs, a 40–50-page part came back in about 10 to 25 minutes.
Manual pages mix several kinds of content, and they aren't all handled the same way:
| On the page | In the translated PDF |
|---|---|
| Instructions, notes and warnings | Translated and set back in the same position. Numbered steps, "Note:" lines and list items keep their own lines. |
| Tables: specifications, torque values, maintenance intervals | Each cell is translated inside its own cell. Cells holding only a number or a code are left as they are. |
| Model codes, part numbers, reference numbers | Not translated. |
| Labels and callout numbers inside drawings | Left as they are, in the original language. Callout numbers still match the parts list. |
| Table of contents | Each entry keeps its own line and its page number. |
| Logos, stamps, handwritten notes | Kept as they are. |
The drawing labels are the main gap. If the words on a diagram matter to you, such as a connector name or a valve position, read them off the original: the side-by-side download puts each original page next to its translation.
The mistakes machine translation makes in manuals cluster in a few places. Check these against the original:
If you convert units for your own use, keep the original figure next to the converted one. Conversion rounds the value, and the original is what the manufacturer specified.
Pictograms help: the Commission's guide notes that well-designed symbols can be understood without translating any text. Words printed on the machine itself still have to be in the local language.
None of these rules say how a translation has to be produced. The translation-industry standards draw their own line: ISO 17100 leaves raw machine output with post-editing outside its scope, while ISO 18587 sets requirements for full human post-editing of machine output. For a manual that will ship with a product, have a professional post-edit the translation and check the safety text against the original. For a manual you need to read, the translation and the original side by side are usually enough.
Yes. Upload the scanned PDF and choose the languages; tables, part numbers and drawings stay in place. Google Translate's document upload leaves text on scanned PDF pages untranslated, so a scan needs a tool that reads the page first.
Cells holding only a number or a code are left exactly as printed, and model codes and part numbers aren't translated. Where a value sits inside a sentence it's carried along with the translated words, so check those lines against the original.
No. Small labels inside drawings stay in the original language, and callout numbers keep matching the parts list. Read the labels you need off the original in the side-by-side download.
Up to 50 pages and 100 MB per upload. Split longer manuals at chapter breaks and translate the parts one after another.
For machinery, low-voltage equipment and consumer products, yes: the instructions must be in a language the member state accepts. Malta and Ireland accept English alone.
For reading a manual yourself, yes. For one that ships with a product, the EU rules judge the result rather than the method and certify no tool's output, so have a professional post-edit it and check the safety text against the original.
Not under the EU Machinery Directive, which leaves parts lists to the contract. The specifications of safety-relevant spare parts are the exception: they belong in the instructions.
No. Each page is translated on its own, so check that each part keeps the same English name throughout, especially across chapters.
Simple, scan-friendly pricing. Pages are pages — no multiplier for scanned files.
Translate a few pages. No commitment.
$0.30 a page, from 10 pages — you pay for exactly 10 pages.
For individuals with scans to translate every month.
For high-volume users with scans to translate every week.
File-size caps, silent timeouts, and layouts that fall apart at scale — why large documents defeat most translation tools, and a workflow that holds up.
Read guideJapanese documents break translation tools in ways no other language quite matches. Here's what's actually going wrong, and the workflow that handles it.
Read guide