Translate a Word document into Italian

What changes when a Word file goes into Italian

Italian is roughly the same length as French, but it usually runs longer than English. If your source is English, the places to watch are narrow table columns, fixed-size text boxes and cover pages where a title already fills the line: Terms and Conditions becomes Termini e condizioni generali or similar.

• Numbers: Italian uses a comma for decimals and a full stop for thousands, so 1,250.50 becomes 1.250,50. This is the error that matters most in price lists and financial tables.
• Dates: 12 marzo 2025, day first, with months and weekdays in lower case.
• Accents: grave (è, città, più) and acute (perché, né). The capital is È, never E'.
• Punctuation: no space before : or ?; quotation marks are either «…» without inner spaces or “…”, used consistently. Elisions take an apostrophe: l'azienda, un'ora.
• Abbreviations: n. 5 for “No. 5”, art. 3, pag. 12.

Register and conventions in Italian business documents

English has a single “you”; Italian business writing addresses the reader with the formal Lei, in the third person singular: “Le inviamo in allegato…” (please find attached), “La preghiamo di…” (we kindly ask you to). Some writers keep the courtesy capital (La ringraziamo); whichever is chosen should hold throughout the document.

• Letters: Spett.le before a company name, Gentile Dott.ssa Rossi for a person, Cordiali saluti or Distinti saluti to close. “Dear Sir or Madam” has no word-for-word equivalent.
• Headings: English Title Case does not carry over. Italian capitalises only the first word: Condizioni generali di vendita, not Condizioni Generali Di Vendita. Nationality adjectives stay lower case: il mercato britannico.
• Variable passages: if your Word file is a template with blanks or mail-merge fields (“___ days”), Italian agreement depends on the number: 1 giorno, 3 giorni. Large round numbers take di: 1 milione di euro. A translation cannot know which value will be inserted, so check these passages yourself.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not do

Manuce translates the paragraphs, tables, headers and footers and text boxes in your .docx. A merged table cell is translated and charged only once. The Italian text is written back into the original file run by run: fonts, sizes, colours, bold and italics, styles, numbering and table widths stay as they were. A contract with numbered clauses keeps its numbering and heading styles.

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, plus a Word version, a PDF and the plain text, which is handy if an Italian-speaking colleague is going to review it. A typical document is delivered within minutes.

What remains for you: the table of contents and cross-references are automatic fields and keep working, but their page numbers are only recalculated when you update fields in Word. Manuce does not produce sworn or certified translations: if an Italian court or public office asks for a traduzione giurata or asseverata (certificates, company statutes, diplomas), you will need an accredited translator. For a document going to an Italian client or partner, the Professional level, handled by the domain specialist, is the sensible choice; Essential is enough to understand a file for internal use.

Preparing the file and checking the Italian

Before uploading:

• Accept or reject tracked changes and remove comments you do not want your Italian reader to see.
• Make sure the text you need translated is real text: a table pasted as an image or a slogan inside a logo is not among the translated elements (paragraphs, tables, headers and footers, text boxes).
• List the terms that must stay unchanged (company name, product names) so you can check them on review.

After delivery:

1. Update fields so the table of contents and cross-references show the right page numbers.
2. If Word underlines everything in red, set Italian as the proofing language: spelling and hyphenation will then follow Italian rules (pro-get-to, re-la-zio-ne).
3. Scan tables for amounts and dates: 1.250,50 and 12/03/2025 (day first), not 1,250.50 or 03/12/2025.
4. Reread salutations, signatures and legal notices, which depend on who receives the document.

In practice

1. Upload your .docx: the quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count.
2. Choose Italian and a level, then read the free sample paragraph to judge the register.
3. Pay and download the translated .docx, the Word version, the PDF and the plain text from your client area.
4. Open the file in Word, update fields and check figures, dates and salutations.