Is it free to translate a PDF from English to German?

Free daily credits let you try document translation without an account. The uploader shows the credit cost before you translate. The upload limits without an account and on Free or Pro are 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar allows 50MB and 1,000,000 characters. A file within those limits may still need more credits than your free balance. Pro and Scholar include monthly credits, and credit packs are also available.

Can it read scanned or photographed German documents?

Yes. Upload a photo or scan (JPG, PNG, or HEIC) or a scanned PDF and we run text recognition before translating. Umlauts and ß are handled correctly, and clean scans of printed Fraktur — the blackletter type used in German printing until the 1940s — usually come through well. Handwritten Kurrent or Sütterlin script is the hard case: results vary a lot with the handwriting, so treat those as a best-effort aid rather than a reliable transcription.

How accurate is it? What is the difference between Fast and Advanced?

Fast is built for volume and gist — reading a report or a stack of records quickly. Advanced runs a frontier model and is the right choice for anything you will act on: it keeps Sie and du consistent across a whole document, unpacks long compounds into correct English instead of literal fragments, tracks German's verb-final subordinate clauses, and handles legal and administrative terminology. For contracts, official letters, and academic prose, use Advanced.

Will the translation keep my document's original layout?

The translator produces a translated PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel or EPUB file that aims to preserve the original layout, including tables, columns and headers. Text size, fonts and line breaks may change, so review the result against the original. The credit cost is shown before you translate. German text is roughly a third longer than English, so the formatted output adjusts type size and line breaks to fit.

Can I use this for official submissions like USCIS, an embassy, or a university?

Not directly. Authorities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland generally require a certified translation from a sworn translator (beeidigter or vereidigter Übersetzer), and US agencies like USCIS require a signed certification of accuracy. Use Polytranslator to understand your documents, prepare drafts, and work out which pages actually need certifying — then pay a sworn translator only for those. That is usually far cheaper than certifying everything blind.

Which German do I get — Germany, Austria, or Switzerland?

Standard German (Hochdeutsch), which is the written language of documents in all three countries; a translation produced here is fully understood in Berlin, Vienna, and Zurich alike. Spelling follows Germany's conventions, including ß. Two things to know: Swiss German writing replaces ß with ss throughout, and Austrian administrative vocabulary has its own terms (Jänner for January, distinct legal terminology), so if your document is going to a Swiss or Austrian authority, a quick pass for those conventions is worth it.

What file types can I upload?

PDF, DOCX (Word), PPTX (PowerPoint), XLSX (Excel), and EPUB, plus photographed or scanned documents as JPG, PNG, or HEIC. The translated file retains the workbook or presentation structure. Free and Pro accept up to 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar accepts up to 50MB and 1,000,000 characters. Translation is limited by your credit balance.

German PDF & Document Translator — English ↔ German

Translate English to German or German to English while preserving your document’s layout. Upload your file, choose the target language, and review the credit quote.

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See “Keep formatting” in action

Real examples of the “Keep formatting” option: original on the left, translated document on the right. Click either page to enlarge.

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A civil complaint filed in Mexico City, Spanish to English. Caption block, numbered pleadings, the evidence table and the signature block all keep their places. — Original — A civil complaint filed in Mexico City, Spanish to English. Caption block, numbered pleadings, the evidence table and the signature block all keep their places.

An Italian birth certificate, photographed rather than scanned. The framed masthead, the field grid, the marginal annotations and the round seal all hold their positions. — Original — An Italian birth certificate, photographed rather than scanned. The framed masthead, the field grid, the marginal annotations and the round seal all hold their positions.

A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact. — Original — A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact.

A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact. — Translation — A handwritten archaeological field notebook from 1974. The engine reads the hand and keeps the ruled inventory table intact.

A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged. — Original — A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged.

A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged. — Translation — A German hospital discharge summary. Diagnoses with ICD codes, lab values and the medication table survive the translation unchanged.

A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register. — Original — A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register.

A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register. — Translation — A 1747 parish baptism register in Latin. Ruled columns, godparents and marginal notes stay aligned, so the genealogy still reads as a register.

A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place. — Original — A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place.

A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place. — Translation — A scanned 17th-century Italian index of sermons. Two columns of dense small print, translated in place.

How German documents come out

Translate a German PDF, Word document or scanned Amtsbrief into English, or turn English files into German. Upload contracts, certificates, technical manuals, research papers, spreadsheets, presentations or EPUB books. Download a translated file that preserves the layout, and review the credit quote before translating.

German uses the Latin alphabet, written left to right, so nothing needs mirroring — the real document problem is length. German runs roughly 20–35% longer than the same text in English, because ordinary words are longer and concepts fuse into single compounds (Haftpflichtversicherung, Aufenthaltsgenehmigung). The translation is fitted into the original layout, with type size and line breaks adjusted where the translated text runs longer. German also has its own typographic conventions worth knowing when you read the output against the source: three umlaut vowels (ä, ö, ü) and the Eszett (ß — written ss in Switzerland), every noun capitalized, „low-high" quotation marks, dates as DD.MM.YYYY, and the decimal comma — 1.234,56 in a German invoice is 1,234.56 in English. Older German documents add a second layer: books and newspapers were printed in Fraktur (blackletter) until the 1940s, and handwriting before roughly 1950 is often Kurrent or Sütterlin, scripts most Germans today cannot read themselves.

Translate your document and keep its structure

The translator keeps your file’s structure and shows the credit quote before you start. The downloaded format depends on the source file.

PDFs and scanned pages: The translated PDF follows the page visually, with translated pages rendered as images. Selectable PDF text and identical fonts are not guaranteed.
Word documents and PowerPoint presentations: Start with DOCX or PPTX when you have it. Native paragraphs, table text and slide text can stay editable in the corresponding file format. Translated text inside pictures remains image content; review text wrapping and font changes in your editor.
Excel workbooks and EPUB books: Use the original XLSX or unprotected EPUB for a translated workbook or ebook. Review formulas, numbers and text cells in a workbook; check chapter order, navigation and text flow in your ebook reader.

What people translate to and from German

Immigration and civil documents

Anyone moving between the German-speaking world and an English-speaking one ends up translating paperwork: birth, marriage, and death certificates from the Standesamt, a Führungszeugnis (police clearance), school and work references, and the dense official letters that arrive from the Ausländerbehörde or Finanzamt. German administrative prose — Amtsdeutsch — is famously hard even for native speakers, so a fast readable translation is often the difference between understanding a Bescheid and missing its deadline. Applicants for German citizenship by descent (including §15 StAG restoration cases) use document translation the other way, to read the old German records their claim depends on.

Business, engineering, and trade

Germany is the largest economy in the EU and a top trading partner for the US and UK, and its paperwork reflects it: supplier contracts, GmbH formation documents, Handelsregister extracts, invoices, tender documents, and above all technical material — machine manuals, DIN-standard specifications, safety data sheets, maintenance logs. German technical writing is precise but compound-heavy, and its numbers use the decimal comma, so a careful translation of a datasheet or an offer letter matters more than it would for casual text. Companies also translate the other direction, turning English product documentation into German for customers who expect it.

Academic reading and credentials

A large share of foundational scholarship in philosophy, theology, classics, musicology, art history, and the history of science was written in German and much of it was never translated. Graduate students and researchers upload chapters, journal articles, and dissertations to read sources in Kant, Weber, or Mommsen without waiting for a translation that may never come. In the other direction, students translate their Zeugnisse, transcripts, and diploma supplements to understand what admissions offices and credential evaluators will see.

Genealogy and family papers

German Americans are one of the largest ancestry groups in the United States, and family research runs straight into German-language records: church registers, emigration papers, old letters, and postcards. Printed material — even Fraktur, on a clean scan — is workable with photographed-document upload. Handwritten Kurrent and Sütterlin are genuinely difficult for any automated system; expect partial results there and treat them as a starting point for deciphering, not a finished transcription.

What to watch for in German document translation

Most German document translation failures fall into a few repeatable traps. Length expansion is the visible one: German runs about a third longer than English, so tools that clone the original layout produce truncated headings and overflowing table cells. Compounds are the subtle one — a term like Aufenthaltsgenehmigung must become "residence permit," not a word-by-word fragment, and cheap systems regularly split or literalize them. Register drift is common in machine output: a letter that opens with formal Sie slips into informal du halfway through, which reads as rude in German business correspondence. Numbers are the dangerous one: German writes 1.234,56 where English writes 1,234.56, so an unconverted decimal comma in an invoice or spreadsheet silently changes values by factors of a thousand. Add false friends (eventuell means possibly, not eventually; aktuell means current, not actual; Gift means poison), verb-final subordinate clauses that weak models lose track of, and Amtsdeutsch terms like Bescheid or Anmeldebescheinigung that need a short gloss rather than a one-word swap — and the case for a quality tier that actually understands the document, rather than transliterating it, makes itself.

German document translation FAQ

Is it free to translate a PDF from English to German?: Free daily credits let you try document translation without an account. The uploader shows the credit cost before you translate. The upload limits without an account and on Free or Pro are 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar allows 50MB and 1,000,000 characters. A file within those limits may still need more credits than your free balance. Pro and Scholar include monthly credits, and credit packs are also available.
Can it read scanned or photographed German documents?: Yes. Upload a photo or scan (JPG, PNG, or HEIC) or a scanned PDF and we run text recognition before translating. Umlauts and ß are handled correctly, and clean scans of printed Fraktur — the blackletter type used in German printing until the 1940s — usually come through well. Handwritten Kurrent or Sütterlin script is the hard case: results vary a lot with the handwriting, so treat those as a best-effort aid rather than a reliable transcription.
How accurate is it? What is the difference between Fast and Advanced?: Fast is built for volume and gist — reading a report or a stack of records quickly. Advanced runs a frontier model and is the right choice for anything you will act on: it keeps Sie and du consistent across a whole document, unpacks long compounds into correct English instead of literal fragments, tracks German's verb-final subordinate clauses, and handles legal and administrative terminology. For contracts, official letters, and academic prose, use Advanced.
Will the translation keep my document's original layout?: The translator produces a translated PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel or EPUB file that aims to preserve the original layout, including tables, columns and headers. Text size, fonts and line breaks may change, so review the result against the original. The credit cost is shown before you translate. German text is roughly a third longer than English, so the formatted output adjusts type size and line breaks to fit.
Can I use this for official submissions like USCIS, an embassy, or a university?: Not directly. Authorities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland generally require a certified translation from a sworn translator (beeidigter or vereidigter Übersetzer), and US agencies like USCIS require a signed certification of accuracy. Use Polytranslator to understand your documents, prepare drafts, and work out which pages actually need certifying — then pay a sworn translator only for those. That is usually far cheaper than certifying everything blind.
Which German do I get — Germany, Austria, or Switzerland?: Standard German (Hochdeutsch), which is the written language of documents in all three countries; a translation produced here is fully understood in Berlin, Vienna, and Zurich alike. Spelling follows Germany's conventions, including ß. Two things to know: Swiss German writing replaces ß with ss throughout, and Austrian administrative vocabulary has its own terms (Jänner for January, distinct legal terminology), so if your document is going to a Swiss or Austrian authority, a quick pass for those conventions is worth it.
What file types can I upload?: PDF, DOCX (Word), PPTX (PowerPoint), XLSX (Excel), and EPUB, plus photographed or scanned documents as JPG, PNG, or HEIC. The translated file retains the workbook or presentation structure. Free and Pro accept up to 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar accepts up to 50MB and 1,000,000 characters. Translation is limited by your credit balance.

See “Keep formatting” in action

Real examples of the “Keep formatting” option: original on the left, translated document on the right. Click either page to enlarge.

1 / 6

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