Translate a safety data sheet (SDS) into English

What changes when an SDS goes into English

An SDS is not free prose. Much of it has an official English wording, and that is where translation quality is decided.

• H and P statements. The EU CLP Regulation sets their wording in every official EU language (Annexes III and IV). Whatever the source language, H225 must read Highly flammable liquid and vapour and H319 must read Causes serious eye irritation. A paraphrase that means the same thing is still not the expected sentence.
• Signal word. Only two exist in English: Danger and Warning. The French « Attention » or German « Achtung » must become Warning, never Attention.
• Section headings. They follow the EU template, e.g. SECTION 1: Identification of the substance/mixture and of the company/undertaking.
• Abbreviations. Local forms such as DL50, CL50 or EPI become LD50, LC50 and PPE; national exposure limits are referred to as OEL. CAS, EC and UN numbers and the UFI code stay unchanged.
• Numbers. A decimal comma becomes a point: 0,79 becomes 0.79.

English usually runs 10 to 15% shorter than French, so the tables in sections 8 and 9 tend to gain space rather than overflow.

British or American English: more than spelling

The right variant depends on where the sheet will be used. EU regulatory English follows British spelling (vapour, colour); a sheet for the United States uses vapor, color. Check in the free sample which variant appears and whether it suits your recipient.

Dates are a concrete trap: a revision date of 03/04/2025 means 3 April in the UK and 4 March in the US. For a sheet that travels, writing the month in full or using 2025-04-03 removes the doubt.

Language is also not the whole story. In Great Britain the SDS now falls under UK REACH and GB CLP; in the United States, under the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard. Sections 2, 8 and 15 may then need different exposure limits, different legislation and a different emergency number. That is regulatory adaptation rather than translation, and it belongs with whoever authors your SDSs.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not do

Your SDS is handled by Curie, Manuce's specialist engine for scientific and medical text: toxicology, ecotoxicology, physical and chemical properties. You can upload Word, PDF, Excel, RTF or HTML, among other formats, and the file comes back in the same format with tables, boxes and pictograms where they were. GHS pictograms are images shared across languages, so there is nothing in them to translate.

What Manuce does not do:

• it cannot read a scanned PDF, meaning an image with no selectable text;
• it does not produce sworn or certified translations;
• it does not check the mixture's classification, recalculate anything, or adapt exposure limits or the legislation listed in section 15 to the destination country;
• it does not take a glossary: a trade name or internal product code you want left as is should be checked in the free sample and then in the translation.

For a sheet sent to customers or carriers, the Professional or Premium level is the sensible choice; Essential is enough to understand a sheet internally.

Preparing the file and checking the result

Before uploading:

• start from the latest version of the source sheet and confirm its revision date and version number;
• if your SDS authoring software exports to Word, use that; otherwise a PDF with selectable text works;
• for the free sample, pick a dense paragraph from section 2 or 11, where terminology is easiest to judge.

After delivery, check first:

1. every H, P and EUH statement against the official English wording;
2. the signal word (Warning, not Attention);
3. the figures in sections 8 and 9: decimal points, units, °C and mg/m³ intact;
4. section 14: the UN proper shipping name has a fixed English wording in the transport regulations;
5. section 1: contact details and an emergency number valid for the destination country.

In practice

1. Export the latest version of your SDS to Word or to a PDF with selectable text.
2. Upload the file: the quote appears at once, based on the exact word count.
3. Request the free sample on a paragraph from section 2 or 11 and check the terminology.
4. Pay, then download the translated sheet in its original format from your client area.
5. Check the H and P statements, the signal word and sections 1, 8, 9 and 14.