Translate an annual report PDF into English

Annual report vocabulary in English

An annual report combines three registers: the chairman’s statement, the business review and the financial statements. Moving it into English is mostly a matter of accounting vocabulary, where literal translation goes wrong. That is why the file goes to Métis, Manuce’s financial specialist, rather than a general-purpose engine.

• Sales figure (French chiffre d’affaires, German Umsatz): revenue in IFRS accounts, turnover still common in the UK.
• Bottom line: net profit in British usage, net income in American.
• Reporting period: financial year or FY2024 in the UK, fiscal year in the US.
• Balance sheet terms: equity or shareholders’ equity; external auditors are statutory auditors in a European context.
• Shareholder meeting: Annual General Meeting, usually shortened to AGM.

Decide first which variety you need. A report for London investors uses different words and spelling (organisation, programme, labour) from one aimed at a US readership (organization, program, labor). Consistency matters most: turnover on page 3 and revenue on page 40 for the same figure looks careless to an analyst.

Numbers, units and dates: where errors creep in

Figures in an annual report are not translated, but the way they are written changes. This is where the most damaging mistakes hide, because a misplaced separator changes the value a reader sees.

• Separators: continental 1.234,5 or 1 234,5 becomes 1,234.5. A decimal comma left in place, as in 2,5, looks like an unfinished thousand to an English reader.
• Large numbers: French milliard, German Milliarde and Spanish mil millones are all billion; their billion, Billion or billón is an English trillion.
• Plurals: English has only two forms (one, other), and multipliers stay singular after a number: €2 million, never €2 millions.
• Abbreviations: M€, Mio. € or Md€ become €m and €bn in British usage, or EUR million in a table header.
• Negative amounts: English-language tables often use brackets, (12.4) rather than -12,4.
• Percentages: no space, 12.3%.
• Dates: 31 December 2024 in British English, December 31, 2024 in American. Written as 03/04/2025, a US reader sees 4 March: spell the month out.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not do

Manuce reads the PDF text block by block, with its position, font, size and colour. It returns a PDF in which the original text is removed and the English translation placed in the same box, in the original font or an equivalent; images and background stay. Coming from French, English usually runs 10 to 15% shorter, so headings, column titles and footnotes generally fit their frames; from other languages the gap varies. Where a translated block is longer, the text size is reduced until it fits.

You also receive a Word version (editable text), a formatted PDF and plain text. The Word file is the quickest place to reword a line of the chairman’s statement or align an accounting term without reopening your layout software.

What Manuce does not do:

• A scanned PDF, an image of a page with no selectable text, is not read. An older report that only exists as a scan needs a text-based PDF first.
• Charts and diagrams embedded as images are kept as they are: a label such as Umsatzentwicklung 2020–2024 drawn inside the image is not translated.
• Manuce does not produce sworn or certified translations. If a regulator, bank or court requires a translation certified by a sworn translator, you will need one.

Preparing the PDF and checking the English version

Before uploading:

• Open the PDF and try to select a line in a financial table. If nothing highlights, the page is an image and will not be read.
• Use the final version, with the accounts signed off: the quote is based on the exact word count, around 15,000 words for a 60-page report.
• Note which charts are exported as images; their labels will need redoing in your layout tool.

On the free sample paragraph, then on the full translation:

• Check the variety of English and the consistency of key terms (revenue or turnover, net profit or net income).
• Make sure subsidiary names, brands and acronyms meant to stay unchanged (IFRS, EBITDA, DAX, CAC 40) are intact.
• Compare tables line by line with the original: separators, negative signs, €m units.
• Check the contents page and cross-references such as see note 12: page and note numbers must still match.

For a report going to shareholders, the Professional or Premium level is the sensible choice; Essential is for understanding a document internally.

In practice

1. Check that the PDF text can be selected, including in tables.
2. Upload the report to manuce.com: the quote appears at once, based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free sample paragraph at your chosen level, checking the English variety and accounting terms.
4. Pay, then download the re-laid-out English PDF, the Word version, the formatted PDF and plain text.
5. Check figures, dates and chart labels before publishing.