Translate a PowerPoint presentation into Dutch

Compound words: the real risk on a Dutch slide

Dutch joins compound nouns into a single word, as German does. Where English writes “customer satisfaction survey”, Dutch writes klanttevredenheidsonderzoek. On a slide, that block cannot wrap between words. In a narrow title, a diagram label or a table cell, it either spills out of its frame or breaks somewhere in the middle.

Words that turn up often in business decks:

• aandeelhoudersvergadering (shareholders’ meeting);
• jaarverslag, kwartaalcijfers (annual report, quarterly figures);
• marktonderzoek, klantenservice, projectplanning.

Coming from English, Dutch text usually runs longer overall. But it is the long words, more than the word count, that break layouts: column headings, key-figure callouts and captions under icons are where problems appear first.

Dutch writing conventions your slides need to follow

• No Title Case: Onze strategische prioriteiten, not Onze Strategische Prioriteiten. Headings written in English Title Case should become sentence case.
• The IJ digraph takes two capitals at the start of a word: IJsland, IJsselmeer, never Ijsland.
• Diaereses and accents: België, ideeën, coördinatie. Check that your brand font includes these characters; if not, they appear in a different font mid-word.
• Plurals: only two forms (one / many), but some plurals take an apostrophe: 1 dia, 12 dia's; foto's, agenda's.
• Numbers and dates: decimal comma and full stop for thousands (1.500,75), lower-case months and days (maandag 3 maart).

Netherlands or Flanders: register and vocabulary

The choice between je and u (informal and formal “you”) comes up on the first slide. In the Netherlands many companies address their audience as je, even in a business setting; in Flanders u remains more usual with clients or public bodies. Decide before review and keep to it: je on slide 3 and u on slide 14 is noticeable on screen.

A few terms differ by audience:

• gsm in Belgium, mobiele telefoon or mobiel in the Netherlands;
• proficiat (Flanders) and gefeliciteerd (Netherlands) for “congratulations”;
• facturatie (Flanders) and facturering (Netherlands) for “invoicing”.

For amounts, Dutch usage puts the euro sign before the figure: € 1.250,00. If your deck is for a Flemish audience, have someone local check these points.

What Manuce returns, and what it leaves untouched

Manuce translates the text on every slide: titles, placeholders, text boxes, shapes, grouped shapes and tables. You get your original .pptx back: theme, images, shape positions, animations and transitions stay as they were; only the text changes. You also receive a Word version, a PDF and plain text, handy for a Dutch-speaking colleague who reviews without PowerPoint.

What is not done at present:

• speaker notes are not translated;
• text in charts, SmartArt, slide masters and text embedded in images stays in the source language, so an axis labelled “Q1 Revenue” will not become Omzet Q1;
• a paragraph mixing several formats (one bold word mid-sentence) takes the formatting of its beginning;
• box sizes are not recalculated: a klanttevredenheidsonderzoek can overflow a fixed box; any autofit set in PowerPoint still applies.

Dutch is charged at the base rate (×1 coefficient). Manuce does not produce sworn or certified translations.

Preparing the file and checking the result

Before uploading:

• turn on text autofit for titles and narrow boxes, or widen them now;
• if a SmartArt graphic holds a lot of text, rebuild it with ordinary shapes so that its text is translated;
• copy your speaker notes into a Word document to have them translated separately;
• move bold words out of running sentences if their formatting matters.

After delivery:

• run through the deck in slideshow mode to spot compound words that are split or outside their frame;
• redo chart labels in Dutch, with the decimal comma (12,5%);
• check heading capitalisation and consistent use of je or u;
• send the PDF to your reviewer so they can annotate without touching the .pptx.

In practice

1. Turn on autofit or widen the narrow text boxes in your .pptx.
2. Upload the file: the quote appears at once, based on the exact word count.
3. Choose a level and read the free sample paragraph translated into Dutch.
4. Download the translated .pptx, plus its Word, PDF and plain-text versions.
5. Check overflow, charts and register slide by slide.