Translate a PowerPoint presentation into English

What changes on the slide when the text becomes English

English is usually 10 to 15% shorter than French, and generally more compact than Spanish, Italian or German too. On slides that is mostly good news: fixed text boxes rarely overflow. The side effect is visual: a title that filled the width may leave a gap, and a two-line bullet may shrink to one, shifting the balance of a list. If your source is Chinese or Japanese, expect the opposite, with English taking more room. Text boxes are not resized; any autofit set in PowerPoint still applies.

Three points come up on almost every slide:

• Punctuation: source conventions disappear. No space before colons as in French (Objective: 2025), no German „…“ or French « » quotes, no Spanish ¿ or ¡.
• Title capitalisation: American decks often capitalise every major word (First-Quarter Results); British usage tends towards sentence case (First-quarter results). Pick one and keep it throughout.
• Plurals: English has only two categories (one, other), and zero takes the plural: 0 projects delayed, not "0 project". Source languages with several plural forms, such as Polish or Russian, collapse into these two.

British or American English: decide before you proofread

A deck should not mix the two. Choose by audience: a board in London or a European partner will read British English comfortably, a client in Chicago will expect American English. The differences show quickly on screen:

• spelling: colour / color, organisation / organization, programme / program, analyse / analyze;
• dates: 03/04/2025 means 3 April in London and March 4 in New York. On a slide, write 3 April 2025 or April 3, 2025 to remove any doubt;
• numbers: many European languages write 1.234,5 or 1 234,5; English uses 1,234.5. Symbols sit against the figure: 15%, €1,500.

The safest route is to write dates unambiguously in the source file, then check variant and figures at review, especially in tables, where a misplaced separator changes the value a reader sees.

What Manuce returns, and what stays untranslated

Manuce translates the text of each slide: titles, placeholders, text boxes, shapes, shapes inside groups and tables. You get your original .pptx back with the text replaced in place; theme, images, shape positions, animations and transitions are those of your file. You also receive a Word version, a PDF and plain text, handy for a colleague who needs to review the English without PowerPoint.

The following stay in the source language, which matters before you face an English-speaking audience:

• speaker notes, not translated at present: if you plan to read them in English, handle them separately;
• chart text (axis titles and legends), SmartArt and slide masters, where footers such as "Confidential" or a department name often live;
• text embedded in images, screenshots included.

A paragraph mixing several formats takes the formatting of its start: if only the figure was bold in a line like Our margin is up 12%, the bold is lost and needs reapplying by hand. Manuce does not provide certified (sworn) translation.

Preparing the file before upload

• List the slides that contain charts or SmartArt: their labels will need redoing in English.
• Open the slide masters and note fixed wording (footer, date, "Internal document"); one fix in the master covers every slide.
• If your speaker notes matter, paste them into a Word document and have that translated as well.
• Spell out dates in the source, and where possible move a bold keyword to the start of a bullet rather than the middle.
• Check local acronyms: French CA becomes revenue (or turnover in the UK), German GmbH usually stays as is, Spanish IVA becomes VAT. An in-house acronym is worth spelling out once.

Before paying, the free sample shows one paragraph of your deck translated at the level you chose, which is the right moment to judge tone. For a client pitch or a board meeting, the Professional level aims at text ready to send.

Reviewing the English deck slide by slide

The PDF suits a quick first pass; the final check belongs in the .pptx, in slideshow mode, where animations and empty space become visible.

1. Titles: one capitalisation rule from first slide to last.
2. Bullets: parallel structure (all starting with a verb, or all noun phrases), usually without a full stop.
3. Figures and dates: English separators, chosen variant, consistency with tables.
4. Untranslated items: charts, SmartArt, master, images.
5. Formatting: bold or colour lost in mixed paragraphs.
6. Balance: shorter text can leave a block sitting too high; re-centre where needed.

In practice

1. Upload your .pptx: the quote appears at once, based on the exact word count.
2. Choose a level and read the free one-paragraph sample.
3. Pay, then download the English .pptx along with Word, PDF and plain-text versions.
4. Fix charts, SmartArt, masters and images, then review in slideshow mode.