Translate a Word document into Finnish

What Finnish changes in a Word file

Finnish is unrelated to English, French, German or any other Indo-European language. It is agglutinative: what other languages express with prepositions and articles, Finnish attaches to the word itself. A translated text usually has fewer words, but much longer ones. asiakastyytyväisyyskysely (customer satisfaction survey) and tietosuojaseloste (privacy notice) are each written as a single word. In a Word document, this shows wherever space is tight: narrow table columns, one-line headings, fixed-size text boxes and footers.

The second effect is that a word changes form depending on its role, because Finnish has fifteen grammatical cases. ‘Customer’ as a column header is Asiakas. ‘Sent to the customer’, however, becomes lähetetty asiakkaalle, and ‘the customer’s address’ becomes asiakkaan osoite. An isolated label with no sentence around it therefore takes the base form. That suits a header, but rarely suits half a sentence split across two cells.

Plurals look simple, with two categories (‘one’ and ‘other’). After a number, though, the noun stays singular, in the partitive case: 1 sivu, 12 sivua (12 pages), 3 liitettä (3 appendices). A pattern such as ‘3 appendix(es)’ therefore has no direct equivalent. The script is Latin, with ä and ö appearing constantly and å in names of Swedish origin. If your document uses a decorative font, check that it includes these letters.

Finnish conventions worth checking

• Quotation marks: Finnish uses the same mark to open and close a quotation, ”näin”. There is no space before :, ;, ? or !.
• Numbers and currency: Finnish uses a decimal comma and a space as the thousands separator. The symbol follows the amount: 4 000,50 €.
• Dates and times: dates are written 12.3.2025, usually without leading zeros. Times use a full stop: 14.30.
• Capitals: months, weekdays and nationality adjectives are lower case (maaliskuu, maanantai, englantilainen). Headings capitalise only the first word, so ‘Annual Report Summary’ becomes Vuosikertomuksen tiivistelmä.
• Inflected abbreviations and figures: the case ending follows a colon: EU:n, PDF:ssä, 2025:n. Compounds formed with a proper name take a hyphen: Word-asiakirja.
• Register: formal te remains the norm in official or legal letters, while sinä is common in customer-facing text. The free sample shows which register is used before you pay.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

Manuce translates paragraphs, tables, headers and footers, and text boxes. It then returns your original .docx, replacing the text run by run. Fonts, sizes, colours, bold and italics, styles, numbering and table widths all stay as they were. A merged cell is translated and charged only once.

An automatic check compares the layout of the translated document with the original and flags any difference. It confirms that the formatting has been carried over. It does not, however, shorten a Finnish word that is too long for its column, because table widths are deliberately kept as in the original.

You receive the file in its original format, with the text replaced in place. You also get a Word version, a PDF and the plain text, which is handy for reading the translation straight through without the layout.

What is left for you to do: automatic fields (table of contents, cross-references) keep working, but their page numbers are not recalculated. Finnish text breaks lines in different places, so paragraphs move between pages. Updating the fields in Word puts the table of contents right.

No sworn translation: if a Finnish authority requires a translation by an authorised translator (auktorisoitu kääntäjä), Manuce cannot provide it. The service suits reports, procedures, letters and documentation that you need to understand or pass on.

Preparing the file and checking the Finnish version

Before uploading:

• Split sentences: a sentence spread across two cells or text boxes (‘Sent to the’, then ‘customer service team’) cannot take the correct Finnish case. Put it in a single block.
• Mail-merge variables: an inserted name cannot be inflected. Place the variable on its own, at the start of a line or after a label and colon (Asiakas: «Nimi»), rather than mid-sentence where it would need to change case.
• Text inside images: Manuce translates Word text (paragraphs, tables, text boxes). A heading inserted as a picture is not part of it. If it needs translating, replace it with a text box.

After delivery:

• In Word, set the proofing language to Finnish. Spell-checking and automatic hyphenation depend on it, and hyphenation makes a real difference in narrow columns.
• Update the fields to recalculate the table of contents and cross-references.
• Scan the tables and headings. A compound such as henkilöstöhallintojärjestelmä (HR management system) can overflow or break badly. A manually inserted optional hyphen solves it.
• For product names and brands that must stay as they are, check the free sample, then the delivered translation. Even when kept, a name takes a Finnish ending: Wordissa, Excelissä.

If your readers include Finland’s Swedish speakers, you can add Swedish to the same order. A 20 % discount applies from two languages.

In practice

1. Merge sentences split across cells and replace any headings embedded as images with real text.
2. Upload the .docx: the quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count.
3. Choose a level and read the free sample, checking cases, register and names to keep.
4. Pay, then download the translated .docx, the Word version, the PDF and the plain text.
5. In Word, set the language to Finnish, update the fields and check the narrow columns.