Translate a PDF into Romanian, layout intact

What you get back for a PDF translated into Romanian

Manuce reads the text of your PDF block by block, recording each block's position, font, size and colour. In the delivered PDF the original text is removed and the Romanian translation is placed in the same box, in the original font or an equivalent one; images and backgrounds stay as they are. You also receive an editable Word version, a formatted PDF and the plain text.

If a Romanian sentence runs longer than the source, the text size is reduced until it fits its box. In a narrow table cell or a tight heading on a data sheet, this can leave the text noticeably smaller than the rest of the page, so check those areas first.

What Manuce does not do: a scanned PDF, meaning an image of a page with no selectable text, cannot be read. Manuce does not produce sworn or certified translations either. Romanian carries a ×1.25 coefficient on the per-word rate, already included in the quote shown when you upload.

ș, ț, ă, â, î: the real Romanian pitfall in PDFs

Romanian has five accented letters: ă, â, î, ș, ț. The last two take a comma below (ș U+0219, ț U+021B). For years, because fonts lacked them, they were replaced with ş and ţ with a cedilla (U+015F, U+0163), which are different characters. Romanian readers notice, and a search for “societății” will not find “societăţii” in the document.

PDFs add a further complication: the embedded font usually contains only the characters used in the original. A PDF written in English, German or French rarely embeds ă or ș at all. This is one reason the translation may be set in an equivalent font rather than the original one. If your brand guidelines require a specific typeface, check that you have a version covering Romanian (often labelled “Latin Extended” or “Central European”).

An empty box or question mark in place of ț in a PDF usually points to a missing glyph in the font, not a translation error. The plain text and Word versions let you see the actual word.

Length, numbers, dates and plurals in Romanian

Coming from English, Romanian text often grows: the definite article is attached to the noun (the contract becomes contractul, the services becomes serviciile) and noun phrases tend to expand. From French, Italian or Spanish the length stays fairly close. Boxes sized tightly around an English original are the first to have their text reduced.

• Numbers: decimal comma and full stop for thousands, 1.250,50 lei.
• Dates: 03.03.2025 or 3 martie 2025, month names in lower case.
• Quotation marks: low then high, „Contract de prestări servicii”.
• Plurals: three forms. 1 pagină, 2 pagini, 19 pagini, but 20 de pagini: from 20 upwards the word de is inserted. A template such as “{n} pagini” in an auto-generated PDF will be wrong for 20 and above.
• Register: documents for the public use the polite dumneavoastră and vă forms (Vă rugăm să completați formularul).

Preparing the PDF and checking the Romanian version

Before uploading:

• Select a sentence in the PDF and paste it into a text editor. If nothing can be selected, the file is a scan and will not be read; go back to the source file or a PDF exported from it.
• If the pasted text comes out as garbled characters, the PDF's encoding is faulty; a fresh export from the original application often fixes it.
• Request the free sample: one paragraph translated at your chosen level, so you can judge the Romanian before paying.

On delivery:

• Search the plain text or Word file for cedilla ş and ţ and replace them with ș and ț where needed.
• Look through tables, headers, footnotes and captions where text may have been shrunk.
• Check amounts and dates, especially if the source mixed English and continental formats.
• Make text edits in the Word version rather than in the PDF.

Official documents for Romania or Moldova

A birth certificate, diploma or court ruling submitted to a Romanian authority generally has to be translated by an authorised translator (traducător autorizat), whose signature and stamp appear on the translation. Manuce does not produce this kind of sworn translation.

For such documents, a Manuce translation can still help beforehand: reviewing the content before handing it over, or giving the authorised translator a draft whose layout follows the original. For non-official PDFs, such as reports, manuals, product sheets, catalogues or terms and conditions for customers in Romania or Moldova, the Professional level aims at text ready to send, translated by the engine specialised in your field.

In practice

1. Check that the text in your PDF can be selected: scans are not read.
2. Upload the file, choose Romanian and a level: the quote appears, based on the exact word count.
3. Request the free sample to judge one paragraph in Romanian.
4. After payment, download the re-laid PDF, the Word version, the formatted PDF and the plain text.
5. Check ș and ț, shrunken table text, numbers and dates.