Translate an Excel file into Simplified Chinese

What Chinese changes in a spreadsheet

A Chinese label has two to three times fewer characters than its English or European equivalent, but each character is wider than a Latin letter. «Quarterly revenue» becomes 季度营业额: five characters, taking up roughly the same width. Columns sized for the source text are therefore usually wide enough, unlike when translating into German or Russian.

• Fonts: Calibri, Arial and Verdana contain no Chinese characters. Excel falls back on a substitute font whose appearance varies between computers and in print. Apply a font that covers Simplified Chinese, such as Microsoft YaHei, DengXian or SimSun, to the translated ranges.
• Full-width punctuation: «Total (incl. VAT):» becomes 总计（含税）：. The colon and brackets are no longer ASCII characters, so a search or filter on «:» will not match them.
• No spaces between words: with wrap text on, Excel breaks lines between any two characters, which is correct for Chinese. However, a formula that splits text at a space, such as LEFT combined with FIND(\" \",A2), will find no separator.
• One plural form: Chinese has only the «other» category. «1 item» and «3 items» are 1 件商品 and 3 件商品, so formula logic that switched between singular and plural is no longer needed.

Formulas, numbers and dates: what stays as it is

Manuce does not touch formulas: a calculated cell keeps its formula and keeps calculating, and numbers, dates and amounts stay as they are. That is what you want from a spreadsheet, but it has three consequences when the target is Chinese.

• Text written inside a formula is not translated. =\"Total: \"&B5 will still show «Total:» in the middle of a Chinese sheet. Worse, =IF(C2=\"Yes\",1,0) still compares against «Yes» while C2 now contains 是, so the result is silently wrong. Replace such comparisons with codes (1/0, Y/N) or a reference to a cell before uploading.
• Numbers keep their form. 1,250,000 stays 1,250,000. Chinese readers often count in 万 (ten thousand), giving 125万; if you want that, apply a custom number format yourself. Likewise, amounts in pounds, dollars or euros are not converted to yuan (¥, 元): that is a business decision, not translation.
• Dates keep their cell format. For the usual mainland forms, 2024年3月5日 or 2024-03-05, change the column format after delivery; the underlying value is unchanged.

Finally, a list sorted alphabetically in the source language will no longer be in order once in Chinese: re-sort the column if the order matters.

What you receive, and what Manuce does not do

You get back your original .xlsx with the text replaced in place: column widths, colours, borders, number formats, filters and merged cells are all preserved. You also receive a Word version, a PDF and the plain text, handy for a reviewer who does not work in Excel.

Not translated:

• sheet tab names: «Sales 2024» stays as it is. Rename tabs yourself, for example 2024年销售; Excel updates the formulas that refer to them;
• cell comments;
• charts, including titles and labels typed directly into the chart;
• shapes and text boxes placed on the sheet.

Narrow columns are not widened: a label that was already cut off in the original may still be truncated on screen. Because Chinese is compact, this happens less often than with many other languages.

Manuce does not produce sworn or certified translations. If financial statements must be filed with an authority or bank in China and a certified translation is required, you will need an accredited translator.

Preparing the workbook before upload

1. Pick the right variant: Simplified Chinese for mainland China and Singapore. For Taiwan or Hong Kong, order Traditional Chinese, which Manuce treats as a separate language.
2. Find text inside formulas: look for quotation marks in IF, VLOOKUP, COUNTIF and concatenations. A text lookup key such as «London» becomes 伦敦 in the table; stable codes (UK-LON, REF-012) are safer.
3. Move display labels out of formulas: put «Total:» in a text cell and it will be translated.
4. Put translatable text in cells: instructions in a text box will not be translated; copied into a cell, they will.

Uploading gives an instant quote based on the exact word count of the workbook, followed by a free sample: one paragraph translated at your chosen level, so you can judge the Chinese before paying. Essential is enough to understand a supplier's sheet; for a price list going to a Chinese customer, Professional is the better fit.

Checking the Chinese file on delivery

• Select all sheets and apply a Chinese font; check print preview for empty boxes where characters should be.
• Check calculated columns that depend on text (IF, COUNTIFS on categories): a total of zero often points to a comparison still in the source language.
• Reopen filters: the values offered are now in Chinese and sorted differently.
• Translate tab names, chart titles and comments by hand, keeping full-width punctuation (，。：).
• Have a native speaker review your industry terminology, using the Word or PDF version.

In practice

1. Replace hard-coded text in formulas (IF, VLOOKUP) with codes.
2. Upload the .xlsx, choose Simplified Chinese and a level: the quote appears at once.
3. Read the free sample, then pay to start the translation.
4. Open the delivered workbook and apply a Chinese font to every sheet.
5. Rename the tabs and translate charts, comments and text boxes.