Translate an Excel file into Czech

What changes when a workbook goes into Czech

Czech uses the Latin alphabet with many diacritics: ř, ů, ě, š, č, ž, ň, ť, ď, plus long vowels á, é, í, ó, ú, ý. Standard office fonts such as Calibri, Arial or Segoe UI display them without trouble. A brand or decorative font may lack ř or ů, in which case Excel substitutes another font and the header looks mismatched.

Length depends on the label. Czech has no articles, so some headers get shorter ("Total" becomes Celkem, "VAT" becomes DPH), while others grow: "Due Date" becomes Datum splatnosti, "Unit Price excl. VAT" becomes Jednotková cena bez DPH. In a narrow column the text may be cut off on screen.

Capitalisation is another point. Czech headings capitalise only the first word, so English-style Title Case disappears: "Monthly Revenue" becomes Měsíční obrat, not "Měsíční Obrat". Month and day names are lower case (leden, pondělí).

Czech plurals and text locked inside formulas

Czech has four plural forms. For "item":

• 1 položka (the one form);
• 2 položky, 3 položky, 4 položky (the few form);
• 1,5 položky for decimals (the many form);
• 5 položek and above (the other form).

The trap lies in formulas that join a number and a word, such as =B2&" items". Manuce does not touch formulas, so the quoted word stays in the source language, and even if you translated it by hand it would not agree with the calculated value. Either move the unit into a separate text cell (which will be translated) or, if agreement matters, use a conditional formula that picks položka, položky or položek according to the number.

The same applies to IF(...,"Paid","Pending"): those labels stay untranslated. Find them before you upload.

Numbers, dates, currency and sorting: Czech conventions

Numbers, dates and amounts are left as they are, and number formats are kept. In practice:

• A custom format such as mm/dd/yyyy or 0" pcs" stays exactly as you defined it. The usual Czech date form is 31. 12. 2025, with full stops and spaces, and Czech uses a decimal comma with a space as thousands separator (1 250,50). Adjust formats yourself if your reader expects them.
• No amount is converted: a column in pounds, dollars or euros stays so. For crowns (1 250 Kč, symbol after the amount), conversion and formatting are up to you.
• A date typed as text ("March 2025") is translated as text: březen 2025.

Sorting needs a look. A list sorted alphabetically in the source language is no longer in order once translated, and Czech order has its own rules: č follows c, ř follows r, and the digraph ch comes after h. Filters are kept; simply sort again in the Czech file.

What Manuce returns, and what it leaves alone

You get your original .xlsx, with the text replaced in place and column widths, colours, borders, number formats, filters and merged cells preserved. Every sheet in the workbook is translated, and each calculated cell keeps its formula and goes on calculating. You also receive a Word version, a PDF and the plain text, handy for review by a Czech-speaking colleague.

Not translated:

• sheet tab names ("Sales" does not become Prodej);
• cell comments;
• charts (titles, legends) and shapes or text boxes placed on the sheet;
• text written inside formulas.

Narrow columns are not widened: if Jednotková cena bez DPH overflows, it will be cut off on screen, just as an over-long label would be in the original. Czech is one of the languages with a surcharge (a ×1.25 coefficient on the per-word rate), already included in the quote.

Preparing the workbook and checking the Czech version

Before uploading:

• move labels that need translating out of formulas (units, statuses, IF messages);
• if your house style requires a specific font, check it contains ř, ů and ě by typing Příliš žluťoučký kůň into a cell.

After delivery:

• rename the sheet tabs, watching for INDIRECT formulas that quote a sheet name as text, as they do not follow a rename;
• check lookups (VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP) that compare two translated text cells: an #N/A means a key no longer matches;
• widen truncated columns and re-sort lists;
• if you later export to CSV, choose UTF-8 encoding, or ř and ů may turn into question marks.

For a product name or in-house term that must stay unchanged, check the free sample, then the delivered translation.

In practice

1. Upload your .xlsx file: the quote appears at once, based on the exact word count.
2. Read the free Czech sample to judge tone and terminology.
3. Choose a level, pay, and download the translated workbook with its Word, PDF and plain-text versions.
4. Rename the tabs, translate comments and charts, widen truncated columns and re-sort lists.