Translate an Excel File into Portuguese (Portugal or Brazil)

European or Brazilian Portuguese: decide before you upload

Manuce treats European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese as two separate languages, so pick the one your readers use. In a spreadsheet the differences show quickly, because they sit in the column headers people read on every row.

• Vocabulary: a "Mobile" column becomes Telemóvel in Portugal and Celular in Brazil. Likewise Ficheiro / Arquivo (file), Utilizador / Usuário (user), Equipa / Equipe (team), Registo / Registro (record).
• Instructions: "Enter the date" is more likely Introduza a data in Portugal and Digite a data in Brazil.
• Addressing the reader: você is everyday usage in Brazil. In Portugal, forms often avoid direct address altogether and use impersonal phrasing or the infinitive.
• Abbreviations: N.º and 1.º in Portugal, Nº and 1º in Brazil.

If one workbook has to serve both countries, order both variants. The multi-language discount applies from two languages (−20%).

What changes in the cells when text becomes Portuguese

Portuguese usually runs longer than English. Very short headers are where it shows most: "Qty" becomes Qtd. or Quantidade, and "Due date" becomes Data de vencimento.

• Gender: a status of "Completed" is Concluído for o pedido (the order) and Concluída for a tarefa (the task). In a column of bare status values, nothing tells the translator which noun is implied, so an explicit header such as "Task status" removes the guesswork.
• Plurals: Portuguese has the plural categories one, many and other. You write 1 item but 2 itens, and large round numbers take de: 1 milhão de unidades.
• Capitals: months and weekdays are lower case (janeiro, segunda-feira), abbreviated as jan. or seg.. Headers copied from English capitalisation will look wrong if left as they are.
• Diacritics: ã, õ, ç, â, ê and ô appear throughout (Situação, Observações). Standard Excel fonts display them without trouble.

Exactly what Manuce returns, and what it leaves alone

Manuce translates the text cells on every sheet of the workbook and returns your original .xlsx. Column widths, colours, borders, number formats, filters and merged cells are all preserved. Formulas are not touched: a calculated cell keeps its formula and goes on calculating, and numbers, dates and amounts stay exactly as they were.

You receive the file in its original format with the text replaced in place. You also get a Word version, a PDF and the plain text, which is handy for proofreading all the Portuguese labels in one go.

What is not done:

• sheet tab names ("Q1 Sales" stays as it is, so rename it Vendas T1 yourself);
• cell comments;
• charts, and shapes or text boxes placed on the sheet;
• widening columns: longer Portuguese text may be cut off on screen, just as it would be in the original.

Manuce does not produce sworn or certified translations. If a Portuguese or Brazilian authority requires one for financial statements or records, you will need a certified translator.

Formulas, sorting and numbers: traps in a translated workbook

Because formulas stay intact, any text written inside a formula is not translated, while the cells it reads are.

• Text comparisons: =IF(C2="Paid",B2,0) still looks for "Paid", but C2 now says Pago. The result silently drops to 0, with no error message.
• Lookups: a VLOOKUP whose key is typed directly into the formula will no longer find the translated row.
• Concatenation: ="Total: "&D5 will keep showing "Total:" in an otherwise Portuguese sheet.
• Sorting: rows sorted alphabetically keep the source-language order, so re-sort them after translation.
• Filters: they are preserved, but a criterion based on a text value may still refer to the original term, so check it.

On the number side, the decimal comma and the dd/mm/yyyy date order depend on the reader's Excel regional settings, not on the translation. The currency symbol is part of the number format and therefore stays unchanged, so switch "$" or "£" to "R$" or "€" yourself. Text inside a custom format such as 0" days" is also kept as it is.

Preparing and checking the workbook

1. Find formulas containing quoted text and list the terms to swap for their Portuguese equivalents after delivery.
2. Move important text out of text boxes, comments or chart titles and into cells, because only cells are translated.
3. Expand cryptic headers such as "Stat." or "Resp." so that both meaning and grammatical gender are clear.
4. After delivery, rename the tabs, widen any columns where the Portuguese is cut off, re-sort lists and spot-check a few totals.
5. Ask someone from the target country to read the headers: an Arquivo in a sheet meant for Lisbon stands out.

The free sample, one paragraph translated at your chosen level, lets you check the variant and register before you pay.

In practice

1. Upload your .xlsx file: the quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count.
2. Choose European or Brazilian Portuguese, then the translation level.
3. Read the free sample to confirm the variant and tone.
4. Download the translated .xlsx, plus the Word, PDF and plain-text versions, from your client area.
5. Rename the tabs, fix formulas containing text and widen any truncated columns.