Translate a specification document into Italian

What Italian changes in a specification

An Italian specification is usually called a capitolato (capitolato tecnico for the technical part) or, for a purely functional document, specifiche tecniche. Which term fits depends on your context, so it is the first word to check in the sample.

The core of any specification is its requirements, and their binding force must survive translation:

• mandatory: “the system shall” becomes il sistema deve;
• recommended: “the system should” becomes il sistema dovrebbe or è auspicabile che;
• optional: “the supplier may” becomes il Fornitore può.

A dovrebbe where the source meant deve turns an obligation into a wish, which is the most expensive mistake a specification can contain.

Italian technical writing favours impersonal constructions (si richiede che, è necessario) and parties named by role, often capitalised (il Committente, il Fornitore), rather than addressing the reader directly with the formal Lei. Role names with no exact Italian counterpart, such as “client representative” or “prime contractor”, deserve a careful read: depending on the project you may see committente, stazione appaltante or appaltatore.

Numbers, units and dates: Italian conventions

Tolerances, dimensions and thresholds are where a convention error changes the meaning. In Italian:

• Decimal and thousands separators are reversed compared with English: “1,250.5 mm” becomes 1.250,5 mm.
• Dates run day, month, year: “03/15/2025” in US style becomes 15/03/2025, or 15 marzo 2025 with the month in lower case.
• Abbreviations: “etc.” becomes ecc., “e.g.” ad es. or p. es., “section” art. or par. depending on structure.
• Plurals: Italian distinguishes one, many and other forms. You write 1 requisito, 12 requisiti, but 1 milione di accessi, with di before large round numbers.

A typically Italian trap is accents in all-caps headings. A heading such as “WHAT IS REQUIRED” should become CIÒ CHE È RICHIESTO, with a proper capital È, not E’ with an apostrophe, a mistaken spelling that is still common. Grave and acute accents also differ: perché (acute) versus è (grave). Worth checking if your document has many capitalised titles.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

Your specification goes to Dédale, Manuce’s technical specialist. For a typical document, such as a specification of about 6,000 words (around 20 pages), the translation is delivered within minutes and stays available in your client area.

• Formats: Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF, CSV.
• Layout: the file comes back in its original format. Requirement tables, section numbering and bullet lists stay where they were.
• Free sample: before you pay, one paragraph of your file is translated at the level you choose. Pick a passage dense with requirements to judge how deve and role names are handled.

What Manuce does not do:

• It cannot read a scanned PDF, meaning an image with no selectable text. Upload the source file or a PDF exported from your word processor.
• It does not take glossaries or terminology instructions. For a term that must stay unchanged, such as a product name or internal acronym, check the free sample and then the delivered translation.
• It does not produce sworn or certified translations. If the specification is a contractual document that an Italian authority requires certified by a sworn translator, you will need that route.

For a document going to an Italian supplier or partner, the Professional level matches “ready to send”; Essential is enough to understand an incoming capitolato internally.

Preparing the file and checking the result

Before uploading:

• Make the source consistent: if the same component is called “module” in one place and “unit” in another, the Italian will mirror that hesitation. One term in the source gives one term in Italian.
• Keep stable identifiers: references such as REQ-042 or FR-3.2.1 are not translated and let you compare both versions line by line.
• Update cross-references: a “see 4.3” should point to a section that still exists.
• Replace pictures of text: a diagram pasted as an image will not be translated, so its labels stay in the source language.

After delivery:

1. Go through the requirement tables and match each deve, dovrebbe and può against “shall”, “should” and “may” in the source.
2. Spot-check a few figures: separators, units and tolerances (±0,05 mm).
3. Check capitalised headings and their accents.
4. Have your Italian counterpart review penalty and acceptance clauses if they bind both parties.

In practice

1. Export your specification as Word or as a PDF with selectable text.
2. Upload it: the quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count.
3. Choose Italian and a level, then read the free sample on a requirements passage.
4. Pay and download the translated file, in its original format, within minutes.
5. Check modal verbs, figures and all-caps headings.