Translate a technical data sheet into Japanese

What changes when a data sheet goes into Japanese

Japanese technical writing mixes three scripts: kanji for concepts (使用温度範囲, 'operating temperature range'), katakana for borrowed terms (ポンプ for 'pump', バルブ for 'valve') and hiragana for grammar. Words are not separated by spaces, and punctuation is full-width: 、 for a comma, 。 for a full stop, ： after a field label such as 材質：ステンレス鋼 ('material: stainless steel').

• Register: specification tables use a terse nominal style, with no verbs and no politeness markers. Descriptive paragraphs (product overview, handling precautions) usually take the polite です・ます form. The elaborate keigo of a business letter does not belong on a data sheet.
• Plurals: Japanese has a single form. '2 seals' does not inflect; a counter word is used instead: 数量：2個. A string such as '{n} item(s)' simply becomes {n}個.
• Hazard wording: 危険 (danger), 警告 (warning) and 注意 (caution) are distinct levels. Each level in your source sheet must map to its exact equivalent.

Numbers, units and dates: the Japanese-specific traps

A data sheet lives or dies by its values, and this is where the move into Japanese needs the most care, especially if your source language uses a decimal comma (French, German, Spanish, Italian and many others).

• Decimal separator: Japanese writes 1,250.5 mm. A source value written '1.250,5 mm' or '1 250,5 mm' must be reversed; left as '1,25', a Japanese reader sees one thousand two hundred and fifty, not one and a quarter.
• Units: SI symbols stay in Latin letters (mm, MPa, °C, kW). In a well-finished document, digits and units are half-width; a table mixing ２０ (full-width) and 20 shows the proofreading was not finished.
• Ranges and tolerances: ranges are commonly written with 〜, for example -20〜80 °C; tolerances such as ±0.05 keep their form.
• Dates: a revision date reads 2025年3月14日 or 2025/03/14. Avoid '14/03/2025' or '03/14/2025', which a Japanese reader may misread.
• Standards and part numbers: product codes and cited standards (EN, ISO, ASTM) stay as written. If your Japanese customer asks for JIS equivalents, that is an engineering decision for you, not a translation matter.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

Your sheet goes to Dédale, the engine specialised in technical content. You upload a Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF or CSV file and receive it back in the same format, layout included: an Excel specification table comes back as Excel, a Word sheet stays a Word sheet. For an everyday document such as a two-page data sheet (around 900 words), the translation arrives within minutes and stays available in your client area.

Before you pay, the free sample shows one paragraph of your own sheet translated at the level you chose: the right moment to see how your technical terms and product names come out.

What Manuce does not do:

• A scanned PDF (an image with no selectable text) is not read. Likewise, a caption that is only an image pasted into a diagram cannot be read as text.
• Manuce does not produce sworn or certified translations. If a Japanese authority or importer requires a translation certified by a sworn translator, you will need one.
• Manuce does not recalculate your values or pick equivalent standards: it translates what is written.

Preparing the sheet and checking the Japanese version

A few minutes of preparation saves most of the rework.

1. Upload the source file rather than an exported PDF when you have it: a Word or Excel table translates and reflows more cleanly than a fixed PDF.
2. Leave room in table cells: Japanese has no hyphenation and can break a line between any two characters. A narrow column may push a lone 。 or a unit to the start of a line, which Japanese typography avoids.
3. Check fonts: if the file shows empty boxes instead of characters, the machine opening it has no Japanese font. A font such as Yu Gothic, Meiryo or Noto Sans JP fixes this; for a print PDF, make sure the font is embedded.
4. Check every value: decimal separators, ranges, tolerances, revision dates. Compare the source and translated tables line by line.
5. Check terms that must stay unchanged (trade name, part number XR-200, registered marks) in the free sample, then in the full translation.

If you work with a Japanese distributor, ask them to review the specification table: they know the terms their own customers use.

In practice

1. Upload your data sheet (Word, Excel, PDF with selectable text, etc.): the quote appears at once, based on the exact word count.
2. Select Japanese and the translation level.
3. Read the free sample to check how your terms and part numbers are rendered.
4. Pay, then download the Japanese sheet in its original format.
5. Check figures, fonts and hazard wording before sending it out.