Translate a PDF into Finnish with the layout kept

What Finnish does to a PDF layout

Finnish builds words rather than strings them together. It is an agglutinative language with fifteen grammatical cases, and compound nouns are written as one word. 'Terms of delivery' becomes toimitusehdot, 'occupational healthcare' becomes työterveyshuolto, 'privacy notice' becomes tietosuojaseloste. A Finnish text often has fewer words than its source, but those words are long and cannot be broken just anywhere.

In a PDF this matters most in tight spaces: a narrow table cell, a column header or a form button designed for 'Total' may have to hold a fifteen or twenty-letter word. Manuce does not move or enlarge text boxes; when the translation is longer, the text size is reduced until it fits. The likely result is a cell that is readable but visibly smaller than its neighbours.

A single label also changes form depending on its role in the sentence. Helsinki becomes Helsingissä (in Helsinki) or Helsinkiin (to Helsinki). Brand and company names take endings too: Manuce becomes Manucen in the genitive. So a word repeated across your PDF will not necessarily appear as the same string each time, and that is correct Finnish.

Finnish conventions to check in the translated file

Office PDFs are full of dates, amounts and page numbers, and Finnish handles them in its own way:

• Dates: day, month, year separated by full stops, leading zeros optional: 31.12.2025 or 5.3.2025. Month and day names are lower case: joulukuu, maanantai.
• Times: a full stop, often preceded by klo: klo 14.30.
• Numbers: decimal comma and a space as thousands separator, with the euro sign after the amount: 1 234,50 €.
• Quotation marks: the same mark opens and closes, ”tarjous”.
• Plurals after numbers: Finnish has only two plural categories (one / other), and after a number above one the noun stays singular, in the partitive case: 1 sivu, 10 sivua. A footer such as 'Page 3 of 10' is commonly rendered Sivu 3/10.
• ä, ö and å: they appear constantly. Check they display properly in headings, especially if the PDF used a decorative typeface.

On register, Finnish texts aimed at the public usually address the reader informally; the formal plural form survives mainly in very official correspondence. Use the free sample to check the tone suits your document.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

Manuce reads the PDF text block by block, recording position, font, size and colour. You receive:

• a PDF in its original layout, with the source text removed and the Finnish placed in the same box, using the original font or an equivalent; images and background stay where they are;
• a Word version with editable text, handy for shortening an over-long header or reworking a column;
• a formatted PDF and plain text.

Finnish uses the Latin alphabet and runs left to right, so the re-laid PDF is produced; that is not the case for right-to-left scripts.

What Manuce does not do: it cannot read a scanned PDF. If your pages are images and the text cannot be selected, you need a text-based PDF first. Nor does Manuce produce certified or sworn translations. In Finland, official documents such as certificates, diplomas and court papers usually go through an authorised translator (auktorisoitu kääntäjä); use one for those.

Preparing the PDF and checking the Finnish result

Before uploading:

• Open the PDF and try to select a sentence. If nothing highlights, it is a scan.
• Spot the tight areas: table headers, diagram captions, form buttons. These are where the longest Finnish compounds will land.
• If a term must stay unchanged (brand name, product code, acronym), note it so you can check it afterwards.

After delivery:

• Compare the Finnish PDF page by page with the original, starting with cells where the text has been shrunk.
• Check dates (31.12.2025), amounts and quotation marks ”…”.
• Make sure names and references were not translated. They may legitimately carry a Finnish ending (Manucen), but the stem should be intact.
• If an area is too cramped, rework it in the Word version rather than in the PDF.

For a document going to a Finnish partner, the Professional tier, handled by the domain specialist, is the usual choice; Essential is enough to understand a document you have received.

In practice

1. Check that the text in your PDF can be selected (not a scan).
2. Upload the file and pick Finnish: the quote appears, based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free one-paragraph sample to judge tone and terminology.
4. Pay, then download the re-laid PDF, Word and plain text, usually within minutes.
5. Review narrow cells, dates and proper names in the Finnish PDF.