Translate a Word document into Polish

What changes when a Word document goes into Polish

Polish uses the Latin alphabet and runs left to right, so the document structure stays as it is. What changes is the text and its conventions.

• Longer words. Polish builds long words and noun phrases: “Frequently asked questions” becomes Najczęściej zadawane pytania. In a narrow table column or a heading designed for one line, text may wrap where the source fitted.
• Diacritics. ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż must exist in the font. Calibri, Arial and Times New Roman have them; a brand or display font may not, in which case Word shows those letters in a fallback font that looks visibly different.
• Punctuation and numbers. Polish quotation marks open low and close high: „tekst”. The comma is the decimal separator and a space separates thousands: 1 234,56 zł.
• Dates. 12.03.2025 or 12 marca 2025, with the month in lower case and in the genitive.
• Headings. No English-style title case: only the first word is capitalised, as in Spis treści or Wyniki finansowe za rok 2024.
• Register. Letters and contracts address the reader formally in the third person: Szanowni Państwo, Pan, Pani.

Cases and plurals: the traps specific to .docx files

A Polish word changes its ending according to its role in the sentence. In running text, the translation makes everything agree. Problems appear where Word builds a sentence from separate pieces.

• Mail merge. A merge field always inserts the same form of a name. In a greeting, the first name Piotr should take the vocative: Drogi Piotrze. If your template says Dear {FirstName}, use a greeting without a name (Szanowni Państwo) or a data column that already holds the declined form.
• Four plural categories. 1 strona, 2 strony, 5 stron, 22 strony, 25 stron. A template sentence such as “This document has X pages”, with X filled in later, cannot be translated once for every value. Put the real number in the source, or rephrase as a label: Liczba stron: X.
• Standalone words. A table header or a lone label is translated in the nominative: “Date” becomes Data, “Total” becomes Razem. If the same word is pulled into a sentence elsewhere by a cross-reference or field, it will not agree.
• Page numbering. “Page 3 of 12” becomes Strona 3 z 12, which does not depend on the number and works in a footer built from fields.

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 and italics, styles, numbering and table widths stay exactly as in the original. Polish text takes the place of the source text in each run, so a font that lacks ł or ż will still lack them after translation. An automatic check compares the layout of the translated document with the original and flags any difference.

You receive the file in its original format, layout included, plus a Word version, a PDF and plain text. Polish carries a surcharge: a ×1.25 coefficient on the per-word rate.

What is not done:

• Automatic fields (table of contents, cross-references) keep working, but their page numbers are not recalculated: updating fields in Word does that. Longer Polish text can move a reference such as zob. s. 7 to another page.
• Columns are not widened to fit a longer label; they keep the original width.
• No sworn translation. Civil status records, diplomas or court documents for a Polish authority require a sworn translator (tłumacz przysięgły).

Preparing the file and checking the result

Before uploading:

• Test your fonts. Type ąćęłńóśźż ĄĆĘŁŃÓŚŹŻ in every font used, capitals included. If a letter appears in a different font, change the font in that style.
• Finalise the text. Accept or reject tracked changes so the uploaded text is the version you want translated.
• Simplify fill-in sentences. Look for merge fields and automatically inserted numbers, as described above.

After delivery:

• Update fields to refresh the table of contents (Spis treści) and cross-references.
• Set the text language to Polish if spell-checking or automatic hyphenation still follow the source language.
• Check narrow tables and headings that now run onto two lines.
• Watch for orphaned single letters. Polish typesetting avoids leaving a one-letter word (a, i, o, u, w, z) at the end of a line. For printed documents, replace the following space with a non-breaking space where needed.

To judge quality before paying, the free extract translates one paragraph of your file at the level you choose: pick one with dates, amounts or quotation marks.

In practice

1. Test Polish diacritics in your fonts and accept or reject tracked changes.
2. Upload the .docx: the quote appears at once, based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free one-paragraph extract at your chosen level, then pay.
4. Download the translated .docx, Word version, PDF and plain text from your account.
5. Update fields in Word and check tables and line breaks.