Is the Shakespearean English document translator free?

You can try it free, with no account needed, and signing in gives you a larger daily allowance. Pro and Scholar are there for longer documents and regular use.

Can I upload a play, a sonnet or a study packet and get it in modern English?

Not reliably. The document translator identifies the language of your file, and a Shakespeare extract is English, so with English as the target you will see a warning that the file may come back unchanged, and that is usually what happens. The tools for that job are the text translator, where you paste any passage from any edition and get plain modern English back, and the free side-by-side guides to Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest and the sonnets.

Is the result authentic Elizabethan English?

No, and nothing produced this way is. It is modern English recast in the grammar and vocabulary of Shakespeare's plays: thou and you, hath and doth, prithee, anon, fain and forsooth, with modern spelling and punctuation. Real Elizabethan and Jacobean writing had no standard spelling (Shakespeare's own name was spelled several ways), used the long s, swapped u and v, and drew on a stock of references a modern text does not have. Treat the output as a pastiche in Shakespeare's idiom, good for a card, a toast, a script or a class exercise, not as a period document, and not as your own writing if the assignment was to produce the style yourself.

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

For a style there is no single right answer, so accuracy here means consistency and period feel: keeping thou and you apart and matching each with its verb (thou hast, you have; never thou hath), using -eth only in the third person, reaching for period words (anon, ere, hither, belike) instead of modern ones with -eth glued on, and keeping the meaning of the original intact under the flourish. Fast is fine for a card or a short toast. Advanced runs a frontier model and does this more consistently across a long document, keeps names and facts straight, and is the choice for a script, a speech or anything you will perform or print.

Will the rewrite keep my document's layout?

The translator produces a rewritten 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. Shakespearean prose runs longer than the plain English it replaces, so expect reflow in tight layouts: a two-column program, a poster, a slide with a fixed text box. Start from the DOCX or PPTX where you have it, since those stay editable and you can trim a line that overflows; a translated PDF comes back as page images.

Is this the same as King James Bible English, or 'Ye Olde' English?

Close to the first, not the second. The King James Bible (1611) and the Book of Common Prayer were written in the same Early Modern English as Shakespeare, with thou, thee, -est and -eth, though their register is plainer and their idiom was already somewhat old-fashioned in 1611. 'Ye Olde' rests on a misread letter: early printers used y for the old letter thorn, so ye was simply the, and was pronounced the. Neither is Old English (Beowulf, before about 1150) or Middle English (Chaucer), which are earlier stages of the language with their own pages. Shakespeare wrote roughly from 1590 to 1613, inside a period that runs from about 1500 to 1700, and that is the English this rewrite imitates.

What file types can I upload?

PDF, DOCX (Word), PPTX, XLSX and EPUB, plus photographed or scanned pages as JPG, PNG or HEIC; scans and photos get text recognition before the rewrite. Free and Pro accept up to 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar accepts up to 50MB and 1,000,000 characters. For anything you will edit afterwards, upload the Word or PowerPoint file rather than a PDF export of it.

Shakespearean English Document Translator — Rewrite a File in Shakespeare's Idiom

Rewrite an English Word file, PDF, slide deck or invitation in Early Modern English in the manner of Shakespeare, keeping your document's layout. Upload your file, keep Shakespearean English as the target, and download the rewritten document with thou, thee and hath in place.

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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 Shakespearean English documents come out

Upload an English Word file, PDF, slide deck or scanned page and get it back rewritten in Shakespearean English: a wedding invitation or program, a toast, a graduation speech, a class project, a birthday letter, a drama-club script or a poster for a Renaissance faire, with the layout kept. The result is modern English dressed in the grammar and vocabulary of Shakespeare's stage (thou and thee, hath and doth, prithee and anon), a pastiche rather than authentic Elizabethan text. Reading Shakespeare in plain modern English is a different job, covered below.

Shakespearean English is a style, not a separate language, so the input is ordinary English in the Latin alphabet and needs no special handling. What changes is the text. The rewrite uses modern spelling with Early Modern English forms: thou, thee, thy and thine with their own verb endings (thou art, thou hast, thou wilt), hath and doth in the third person, contractions such as 'tis, o'er and e'en, and period vocabulary in place of modern words. It tends to run longer and more ornate than the original, so a tight layout (a two-column program or a poster) will reflow, and text in a box that cannot grow is meant to be kept short enough to fit. Names, dates, times, addresses and numbers are meant to pass through unchanged; check them first. If what you upload is Shakespeare rather than modern English, the edition matters. Modern-spelling editions (Arden, Folger, Oxford, Penguin) read cleanly, with line numbers, speech prefixes and stage directions in place. Facsimiles of the 1623 First Folio or the quartos are another matter: two-column pages, the long s (ſ) that text recognition reads as f, u and v swapped (haue, vpon), i for j (Iuliet), ye for the, and catchwords at the foot of each page. Reading from a Folio photo is unreliable; work from a modern edition.

Translate your document and keep its structure

The translator keeps your file’s structure while translating the text in context. 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 Shakespearean English

Invitations, programs, toasts and speeches

The most common upload is occasion writing that wants a theatrical voice: a wedding invitation or order of service, a Shakespeare-themed birthday or anniversary card, a toast, a retirement roast, a Valentine's letter, the menu for a Twelfth Night dinner, or the program for a Renaissance faire or a Shakespeare Day event on 23 April. Upload the Word file or slides you already have and the rewrite lands in the same layout, ready to print. Keep the practical lines practical: check that the date, the time, the venue and every name survived the flourish, and read the result aloud once, because a toast in this register is meant to be heard.

Class projects, worksheets and drama clubs

Teachers rewrite a worksheet, a set of instructions or a familiar story in Shakespeare's voice to give a class something to decode, and students turn a modern scene, a news story or their own writing into Early Modern English for a creative assignment or a drama-club performance. Both suit a document rewrite, since the layout of a handout or a script (speaker names, stage directions, numbered questions) survives. One caution for students: if the assignment is to write in Shakespearean style yourself, a generated draft is a model to learn from and rework, not something to hand in as your own, and most courses have rules about it. Ask before you submit.

Scripts, games, fiction and role-play

Writers and game designers use the rewrite for a period voice at scale: a devised-theatre script that shifts a modern play into an Elizabethan register, in-game letters and proclamations for a tabletop campaign or a live-action event, dialogue for a historical-fantasy novel, or a whole run of tavern signs and wanted posters. Upload the DOCX, PPTX or PDF and every block is rewritten in place. Expect a pastiche in Shakespeare's idiom rather than a text a scholar would date to the 1590s: the spelling is modern, the grammar is Early Modern, and the vocabulary is the stage's. For work you will publish or perform, have someone who knows the plays check the thou and you forms and the false friends listed below.

Reading Shakespeare in modern English

Many people arrive with the opposite need: a scene from Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet set for homework, an exam extract, a sonnet for a wedding reading, a study packet with line numbers and footnotes. For that, the document translator is the wrong tool. It identifies the language of your file, and a play extract is English, so choosing English as the target gives you a warning and, most likely, a file that comes back much as it went in. Use the text translator instead, which turns any passage from any edition into plain modern English, or read the six plays and the sonnets in the free side-by-side guides, with the original on one side and a modern rendering on the other.

What to watch for in Shakespearean English document translation

The traps run in both directions. Going into Shakespearean English, the usual failures are grammatical: thou takes its own verb forms (thou art, thou hast, thou dost, thou wilt) while you takes the plain form, so thou hath and you art are both wrong; -eth belongs to the third person only; thee is the object form, thy or thine the possessive. Thou was also a social signal, intimate, condescending or contemptuous, while you was polite and plural, so a rewrite that thous a roomful of guests is, strictly, talking down to them. Going the other way, Shakespeare's vocabulary is full of words that look modern and are not: wherefore is why, anon is at once or soon, presently is now, an is if, still is always, let is hinder, doubt is fear, want is lack, fond is foolish, brave is splendid, quick is alive, naughty is wicked, nice is fussy, sad is serious, marry is an oath, soft is wait. Questions and negatives do without do (Know you not?), double superlatives (the most unkindest cut) are emphasis rather than error, and its was still new, so his often means its. Puns and bawdy double meanings do not survive a plain paraphrase, so read any rendering of a scene with the edition's notes open.

Shakespearean English document translation FAQ

Is the Shakespearean English document translator free?: You can try it free, with no account needed, and signing in gives you a larger daily allowance. Pro and Scholar are there for longer documents and regular use.
Can I upload a play, a sonnet or a study packet and get it in modern English?: Not reliably. The document translator identifies the language of your file, and a Shakespeare extract is English, so with English as the target you will see a warning that the file may come back unchanged, and that is usually what happens. The tools for that job are the text translator, where you paste any passage from any edition and get plain modern English back, and the free side-by-side guides to Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest and the sonnets.
Is the result authentic Elizabethan English?: No, and nothing produced this way is. It is modern English recast in the grammar and vocabulary of Shakespeare's plays: thou and you, hath and doth, prithee, anon, fain and forsooth, with modern spelling and punctuation. Real Elizabethan and Jacobean writing had no standard spelling (Shakespeare's own name was spelled several ways), used the long s, swapped u and v, and drew on a stock of references a modern text does not have. Treat the output as a pastiche in Shakespeare's idiom, good for a card, a toast, a script or a class exercise, not as a period document, and not as your own writing if the assignment was to produce the style yourself.
How accurate is it? What is the difference between Fast and Advanced?: For a style there is no single right answer, so accuracy here means consistency and period feel: keeping thou and you apart and matching each with its verb (thou hast, you have; never thou hath), using -eth only in the third person, reaching for period words (anon, ere, hither, belike) instead of modern ones with -eth glued on, and keeping the meaning of the original intact under the flourish. Fast is fine for a card or a short toast. Advanced runs a frontier model and does this more consistently across a long document, keeps names and facts straight, and is the choice for a script, a speech or anything you will perform or print.
Will the rewrite keep my document's layout?: The translator produces a rewritten 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. Shakespearean prose runs longer than the plain English it replaces, so expect reflow in tight layouts: a two-column program, a poster, a slide with a fixed text box. Start from the DOCX or PPTX where you have it, since those stay editable and you can trim a line that overflows; a translated PDF comes back as page images.
Is this the same as King James Bible English, or 'Ye Olde' English?: Close to the first, not the second. The King James Bible (1611) and the Book of Common Prayer were written in the same Early Modern English as Shakespeare, with thou, thee, -est and -eth, though their register is plainer and their idiom was already somewhat old-fashioned in 1611. 'Ye Olde' rests on a misread letter: early printers used y for the old letter thorn, so ye was simply the, and was pronounced the. Neither is Old English (Beowulf, before about 1150) or Middle English (Chaucer), which are earlier stages of the language with their own pages. Shakespeare wrote roughly from 1590 to 1613, inside a period that runs from about 1500 to 1700, and that is the English this rewrite imitates.
What file types can I upload?: PDF, DOCX (Word), PPTX, XLSX and EPUB, plus photographed or scanned pages as JPG, PNG or HEIC; scans and photos get text recognition before the rewrite. Free and Pro accept up to 20MB and 100,000 extracted characters per file; Scholar accepts up to 50MB and 1,000,000 characters. For anything you will edit afterwards, upload the Word or PowerPoint file rather than a PDF export of it.

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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