Translate a Word document into Danish

What Danish changes in a Word file

Danish uses the Latin alphabet and runs left to right, so there is no change of text direction and no special script to install. The pitfalls lie elsewhere.

• Closed compounds. “Customer service representative” becomes kundeservicemedarbejder, a single 23-letter word. In a narrow table column or a centred heading, it can only break through hyphenation. Without hyphenation, it overflows or leaves an almost empty line above it.
• Suspended hyphens. “Terms of sale and delivery” becomes salgs- og leveringsbetingelser. The hyphen followed by a space is standard Danish, not a typo.
• æ, ø, å. Mainstream fonts include these letters, but a brand or display font may not. Word then shows them in a substitute font, which is most noticeable in headings.
• Capitalisation. Danish headings use sentence case: an English “Annual Report 2024” becomes Årsrapport 2024, without capitals on every word.
• Length. Danish usually runs close to English in length and tends to be more compact than French or German. Pagination still shifts, which affects the table of contents.

Danish conventions to check in the text

• Numbers: Danish uses a decimal comma and a full stop for thousands, so 1,250.50 is written 1.250,50. If your source uses the English convention, make sure no figure can be misread once translated.
• Dates: Danish writes 5. marts 2025, with a full stop after the day and the month in lower case. Weekdays are lower case too (mandag). The usual numeric form is 05.03.2025, day first.
• Quotation marks: Danish often uses »quote«, with the chevrons pointing inwards.
• Register: professional Danish is informal. “Please find attached” naturally becomes Du finder vedhæftet. The formal De now sounds stiff, so check the free sample if your reader expects it.
• Plurals: Danish has only two forms, singular and plural: 1 side, 12 sider. Templates with “page(s)” or numbers inserted by fields are worth checking.
• Alphabetical order: æ, ø and å come after z. Because text is replaced in place, a list or index sorted in the original keeps its original order and may need re-sorting.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

Manuce translates paragraphs, tables, headers and footers, and text boxes. A merged cell is translated and charged only once. The .docx is rebuilt run by run: fonts, sizes, colours, bold, italics, styles, numbering and table widths stay exactly as in the original. An automatic check then compares the layout of the translated document with the original and flags any difference.

You receive the file in its original format, with the Danish text in place of the source text, plus a Word version, a PDF and plain text. A typical document is delivered within minutes and kept in your client area. Danish carries a surcharge: a ×1.25 coefficient applies to the per-word rate.

Not done:

• Automatic fields (table of contents, cross-references) keep working, but page numbers are only recalculated once you update the fields in Word.
• Table widths are not changed, so a very long compound may need a manual adjustment.
• Manuce does not produce certified translations. If a Danish authority requires a statsautoriseret translatør, you need a sworn translator.

Preparing the file and reviewing the Danish version

Before uploading:

• Upload the final version: resolve pending tracked changes first, so you are not translating text that is still under discussion.
• State the currency and year in amounts and dates in the source, so a Danish reader cannot misread them.
• Note any product names or brand terms that must stay unchanged, then check them in the free sample and in the translation.

After delivery:

• Set the text's language to Danish in Word. Spell-checking and automatic hyphenation depend on it: otherwise Word underlines everything and will not break leveringsbetingelser at the end of a line.
• Update the fields to refresh the table of contents and cross-references.
• Check narrow table columns, and headings set in a brand font, to confirm that æ, ø and å display correctly.
• Re-sort any alphabetical lists according to Danish order.

In practice

1. Upload your .docx and choose Danish: the quote, based on the exact word count, appears immediately.
2. Read the free one-paragraph sample to check register and terminology.
3. Pay, then download the translated .docx, Word version, PDF and plain text.
4. In Word, set the text's language to Danish and update the fields.
5. Review narrow tables, headings and sorted lists.