Translate a PDF into Spanish and keep its layout

What changes when a PDF goes into Spanish

A PDF is not flowing text: every line sits in a fixed-size box. Spanish runs noticeably longer than English and close to French, Italian or Portuguese in length. If your original is English, boxes will often be too small; from a Romance-language original they usually fit. A label such as Due date becomes Fecha de vencimiento; Sign here becomes Firme aquí.

Manuce does not move the blocks: the translation goes into the same box and, when it is longer, the text size is reduced until it fits. On a spacious brochure this is barely noticeable; in a narrow table cell or an already small footer, the reduction can show.

Headings look different too. Spanish capitalises only the first word and proper nouns, so Annual Sustainability Report becomes Informe anual de sostenibilidad, and months, weekdays and nationalities are lower case (lunes, 3 de marzo; la empresa británica). Capitals, however, keep their accents: INFORMACIÓN, never INFORMACION.

Questions and exclamations are punctuated at both ends: they open with ¿ or ¡ and close with ? or !, with no inner space: ¿Tiene alguna pregunta? A brochure tagline or a slide title exported to PDF therefore gains a character at the start.

Spain or Latin America: vocabulary, register and numbers

The same PDF does not read the same in Madrid, Mexico City or Buenos Aires.

• Vocabulary: ordenador in Spain, computadora in most of Latin America; móvil or celular; coche, carro or auto.
• Register: business documents address the reader formally with usted. In the plural, Spain distinguishes vosotros (informal) from ustedes; Latin America uses only ustedes. A customer leaflet addressing readers in the plural has to choose.
• Numbers: Spain uses a decimal comma with the symbol after the amount (1 250,50 €); Mexico uses a decimal point and a thousands comma ($1,250.50). The Spanish academies recommend a space to group thousands.
• Large round figures: 2 millones de euros takes de, while 2 500 000 euros does not.
• Dates: day, month, year (03/04/2025 is 3 April). If your source is American, check every deadline carefully.

If the document targets one country, look at the vocabulary in the free extract and, for public distribution, have a reader from that country check the terms that vary.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not do

Manuce reads your PDF block by block, recording each block's position, font, size and colour. You receive:

• the Spanish PDF, in which the original text is removed and the translation placed in the same box, using the original font or an equivalent; images and background stay in place. This re-layout is included in the price;
• a Word version with editable text, for shortening a sentence or reusing a passage;
• a formatted PDF and plain text, handy for review or for importing into another tool.

Fonts matter for Spanish: many PDFs embed only the characters the original actually used, so an English document may carry a font with no ñ, á or ¿. Manuce sets the translation in the original font or an equivalent; still, check those characters in headings.

What Manuce does not do:

• it does not read a scanned PDF: if the text cannot be selected, the page is only an image;
• it does not produce sworn or certified translations. Official procedures in Spain (civil records, degrees, court rulings) often require a traducción jurada signed by a sworn translator-interpreter; Manuce does not replace one.

Preparing the PDF and checking the Spanish version

Before uploading:

• Try selecting a sentence in the PDF. If nothing highlights, go back to the source file (Word, PowerPoint, a layout application) and export a PDF that contains real text.
• If the document exists in several languages, start from a Romance-language version (French, Italian, Portuguese) rather than English where you can: lengths are closer to Spanish and fewer boxes will need shrinking.
• Spot the tight areas: table cells, captions, form fields, footer notices. These are the blocks that will be reduced.
• List the terms to leave untouched: brand names, product codes, programme titles.

On delivery, check:

• the opening ¿ and ¡, present and not shown as empty boxes;
• ñ and accented letters in bold or capitalised headings (AÑO, DIRECCIÓN);
• amounts and dates, in the format of the target country;
• readability of reduced blocks: if one is too small, shorten the sentence in the Word version and republish from it.

For internal reading, the Essential level is enough; for a PDF going to a Spanish-speaking client or partner, choose Professional or Premium.

In practice

1. Check that the text in your PDF can be selected.
2. Upload the file and choose Spanish: the quote appears, based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free extract to judge vocabulary and register.
4. Pay, then download the Spanish PDF, Word version and plain text from your client area.
5. Check ¿ ¡, accented capitals, numbers and reduced blocks.