FAQ: ImTranslator for Firefox

Please be aware that this translation service provides access to various translation providers: Google Translate, Microsoft translator and others. We have no impact on the translation results for either translation provider.

We have developed free ImTranslator Compare Translations service where you can make translations using different translation engines, compare translation results and choose the best translation.

Yes, we created a switch language button, which can easily flip the translation direction.

Please know that if the source language is set to "Detect language", the switch language button is disabled.

Refer to Switch Languages tutorial.

The online translator doesn't translate .pdf files.
To translate such a document, you have to convert it first into an editable text format, then copy-paste the text into the translation window. Or, if you .pdf file is editable (you can highlight and copy the text) then, you can translate this document using the copy-paste technique.

ImTranslator is fully customizable. ImTranslator Options let you set your preferred translation direction for each translation application.

You can change the target language and keep the language detection option for the Source language set to "Detect language".
With this settings, the language of the original text will be detected automatically, and the language for translation will always be the one you have chosen.

If you prefer not to use the auto detection option, you can disable it by clearing the "Detect source language automatically" checkbox.

Customize the language settings for each translation application: Bubble Translator , Translator ,  Webpage Translation  and ImTranslator. 

ImTranslator application, Translator and Pop-up Bubble Translator have the text-to-voice capability.  You can listen to the original text, its translation and even the back translation.

The voice is currently available for 10 languages:  American English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese Brazilian, Russian, and Spanish.

The voices can speak 1000 characters at one time. Click the "Speaker" icon to initiate the voice.  When clicking the Speaker button, you will be redirected to the ImTranslator Text-to-Speech online service.

Consult our Text-to-Speech tutorial.

The back translation is the feature that translates the target text back to the original language.

Comparison of the back translation to the original text is sometimes used as a quality check on the original translation.
Although the back translation does not always provide the same translation result due to the asymmetric sentence structure in different languages, this feature may give you additional benefit to make sure your text is understandable.
If you want to use the back translation feature, check the Back Translation checkbox.

Refer to the Back Translation tutorial.

ImTranslator Bubble can translate text selected with the mouse (on mouse selection) with or without a shortcut key.

Translate on mouse selection with a shortcut key

• hold the shortcut key (Alt by default)
• select the text with the mouse
• the translation appears in the pop-up window

You can set a different shortcut key using the Shortcut key menu.

Translate on mouse selection without a shortcut key

• open Pop-up Bubble Options
• clear the shortcut field (see "None")
• click OK to save changes

• select the text with the mouse
• the translation will pop up in the bubble window

You can access Options from the Pop-up Bubble window:

or from ImTranslator Options using the context menu or browser's Tools, then ImTranslator menu.

Consult the Translate on Mouse Selection tutorial.

The Pop-up Bubble Translator can be customized using Options.

Consult the Bubble Translator Options tutorial.

The "detected language" is not displayed in Bubble due to the lack of space.
You can see a detected language by choosing ANY language from the source language list in Pop-up Bubble Options.
After the language detection is performed, the set language will be switched to the DETECTED language.
Make sure that the "Detect source language automatically" checkbox is on in Pop-up Bubble Options.
Read how the language detection works:
https://about.imtranslator.net/tutorials/presentations/imtranslator-for-firefox/bubble-detect-language/

When you choose the Mouseover translation mode, hover your mouse over the original text, and the translation for the highlighted segment will be displayed in an pop-up bubble.