Translate a tender document into Simplified Chinese

What changes when a tender goes into Chinese

Chinese procurement vocabulary hinges on two words that differ by a single character: 招标 (to invite tenders) and 投标 (to submit a bid). From them come 招标人 (the contracting authority), 投标人 (the bidder), 招标文件 (the tender documents) and 投标文件 (the bid itself). Swap one and a whole clause changes meaning, so this is the first thing to check in the Chinese version.

Common concepts have settled equivalents: 评标 for bid evaluation, 投标保证金 for the bid bond, 资格审查 for prequalification. Labels specific to your source country's procurement system, such as a French CCTP or a named UK framework, usually have no direct counterpart and are rendered descriptively, for instance 技术规格书 for a technical specification. If the buyer needs to see the original label, keep it in the document title and check it survives in the translation.

The register is administrative and impersonal: "the bidder shall" becomes 投标人应. Clause numbering follows Chinese convention, so "Clause 4.2" is commonly written 第4.2条.

Amounts, dates and quantities: Chinese-specific traps

Tender documents are full of figures, and Chinese organises them differently.

• Amounts in 万: Chinese counts in units of ten thousand. "€1,200,000" can appear as 120万欧元. Both are correct, but a bill of quantities mixing the two forms in one column invites misreading.
• Separators: if your source uses a decimal comma (1.250,50 or 1 250,50), Chinese uses 1,250.50.
• Deadlines: "14 March 2025, 12:00" becomes 2025年3月14日12:00. State the time zone in the source if the submission deadline is not in the buyer's local time.
• No plural: Chinese has a single form (one CLDR category, "other"). "Bidder(s)" is simply 投标人; number comes from context.
• Measure words: quantities take a classifier, 3台 for three machines, 5套 for five sets. Units in a pricing schedule deserve a line-by-line check.

Punctuation becomes full-width: ，。：；（）. Lot and contract references such as Lot 2 – ITT-2025-014 must stay unchanged.

Layout, fonts and tables

Chinese text uses two to three times fewer characters than European languages, but each character is wider, so the space taken changes little. Scoring grids and pricing tables usually keep their proportions, though a narrow cell may break a two-character term at the line end. There are no spaces between words; lines wrap between characters.

The more serious issue is fonts. A Latin font such as Arial, Calibri or Garamond contains no Chinese characters, so the software substitutes another font on opening, and that substitute can vary between computers. If your bid will be printed or converted to PDF on the buyer's side, pick a font that covers Simplified Chinese and produce the final PDF yourself.

PDF documents must contain selectable text. A signed form that was scanned, common in administrative annexes, is an image and will not be read.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

Your documents go to Dédale, Manuce's technical specialist, suited to specifications, performance requirements and scopes of work. The quote appears as soon as you upload, based on the exact word count; for a tender of around 9,000 words, the worked example above gives the order of magnitude. Chinese carries a language supplement (×1.6 on the per-word rate).

• Accepted formats: Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF and CSV. Each file comes back in its original format with the layout intact: instructions to bidders in Word, pricing schedule in Excel, method statement in PowerPoint.
• A free one-paragraph extract at your chosen level, before any payment.
• Delivery within minutes for a typical document, with files kept in your client area.

What Manuce does not do: it does not produce sworn or certified translations. If the buyer requires a certified translation of certain documents, such as company registration certificates or articles of association, those must go to a sworn translator. Scanned PDFs are not read. This page covers Simplified Chinese (mainland China, Singapore); for tenders in Taiwan or Hong Kong, choose Traditional Chinese, which Manuce treats as a separate language.

Preparing the tender and checking the Chinese version

Before uploading:

• Replace scanned pages with their source files (Word, Excel, exported PDF).
• Set aside any documents that need a certified translation.
• Make sure amounts, dates and lot references are real text, not images.

After delivery:

1. Search the Chinese file for 招标 and 投标 and confirm each one refers to the right party.
2. Compare totals in the pricing schedule between source and translation.
3. Check deadlines, times and bid validity periods (投标有效期).
4. If a product name, brand or standard must stay as it is, check it in the free extract, then in the full translation.
5. Open the file on a computer with Chinese fonts installed before producing the final PDF.

In practice

1. Gather the tender files in their source formats, with no scans.
2. Upload each file, choose Simplified Chinese and a level: the quote appears.
3. Read the free extract and check 招标/投标, amounts and dates.
4. Pay, download the translated files in their original format and run your final checks.