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Sending Word, Excel or PowerPoint files for translation: what the translator needs, and what to take out first

Last updated: 26 October 2026

This page is for anyone who sends a source document to a translation agency or a freelance translator: a contract, a manual, a product sheet, a price list, a slide deck. It is about what the Word, Excel or PowerPoint file carries besides the text to be translated, and how to decide what stays. The agency's confidentiality terms, and how its translation software reads a file, are outside it: ask the agency. The examples here are typical cases, not reports of real ones.

What a source file can carry, and whether the translator needs it

Earlier wording in tracked changes

A translator needs to know which text is the text. A file with tracked changes still in it holds two versions at once: what was deleted and what replaced it. Microsoft's page Accept or reject tracked changes in Word says: "Before you share your document, remove any markup by accepting or rejecting tracked changes", and "Choosing the No Markup view only temporarily hides changes. They will be visible again the next time someone opens the document." The deleted wording is where a previous client's name, an old price or a clause your lawyer struck out can still be read, by the translator and by anyone they pass the file to for review.

If the file updates a document that was translated before and you want only the changed parts translated, it can be tempting to send your tracked changes as the guide. They also carry everything your colleagues proposed and dropped, with their names. Settle every change in the copy that goes, and tell the translator in the brief which sections changed, or ask the agency how it prefers to receive an update.

Comments: the ones for the translator, and the rest

Some comments are useful to a translator: "keep the product name in English", "this term is defined in clause 2". Most comments in a working file are not: a manager's query, a note about the other party, a reminder to check a figure. Marking a comment resolved does not take it out. Microsoft's page Using modern comments in Word says that in the default view "resolved comments are hidden", while the list view "includes all active and resolved comments". Open the list view, delete every comment the translator does not need, and keep the instructions either as a few comments or, better, in the brief you send with the file. Comments and notes in a workbook carry their authors too; see Excel comments, notes and names.

Hidden text, slides, sheets and notes

A translator cannot tell whether something hidden is meant to be translated. Each kind needs a decision before the file goes:

• Hidden text in Word. Microsoft's Document Inspector page says: "Word documents can contain text that is formatted as hidden text." Instructions for whoever fills in a form, or a paragraph kept for another version, can be hidden this way. The same page notes that its inspector "cannot detect text that was hidden by other methods (for example, white text on a white background)", so look for that too.
• Hidden slides. Microsoft's page Hide or show a slide says: "A hidden slide remains in the file; it is merely hidden when you run Slide Show view." Backup slides for another audience go to the translator with the rest; unhide each one and delete those that are not to be translated.
• Speaker notes. The Document Inspector page says the Notes section "can contain text that you might not want to share publicly, especially if the notes were written solely for the use of the person who is delivering the presentation." If the presenter in the other language will use the notes, they are part of what is translated; if not, remove them. More in speaker notes and hidden slides.
• Hidden sheets, rows and columns. The same page says of workbooks: "If you distribute a copy of a workbook that has hidden rows, columns, or worksheets, other people might unhide them to view the data that they contain." A price list for translation can sit next to a hidden sheet of costs and margins. The same page warns that removing hidden rows, columns or worksheets that contain data "might change the results of the calculations or formulas in your workbook", so look at what the formulas use before you delete anything. If you copy the sheets to be translated into a new workbook instead, formulas that used the other sheets can refer to the old file instead, with its name and folder path; paste the cells as values, or open Data › Queries and Connections › Workbook Links, as Microsoft's page Manage workbook links describes, and break any link it lists (see full paths in Excel links). Microsoft's page Hide or Unhide worksheets adds that sheets hidden by code as very hidden do not appear in the Unhide dialog, and advises you to "contact the workbook owner for more information"; for a copy to translate, it is simpler to make a new workbook with only the sheets you need. More in hidden sheets, defined names and personal information in Excel.

Headers, footers and watermarks are not hidden, but they are easy to forget: a footer reading "Draft for internal review" or a watermark naming a client will be translated along with the rest. Read them on the copy.

Names and labels in the properties

Microsoft's page Change the author name says: "Every time you create a new document, Word sets the Author property based on the User name setting", that PowerPoint and Excel do the same, and that the User name "also provides the name and initials that are displayed in comments and tracked changes." The Document Inspector page adds that Office maintains "the name of the person who most recently saved a document". A translator does not need either name. Change or remove the Author on the copy (File › Info, right-click the author name, Edit Property); Last Modified By is written again from your User name each time you save, so remove it with Document Inspector's Document Properties and Personal Information, or accept that your name is there. Microsoft's page View or change the properties for an Office file describes custom properties as "properties that you define"; in a file built from another project's document they can still hold that project's code or client. Clear the custom properties on the copy; one by one, these are in Word's company, manager, template and custom properties.

When the translation comes back

The translated file has passed through someone else's computer. By the same rules, it can come back with the translator's or reviewer's name in Last Modified By and on their comments and tracked changes, with their queries in comments, and with whatever hidden content you left in, now in the other language. Before you publish it or send it on to a client, go through it as you went through the source: settle the changes, answer and delete the queries, read the properties, and check the hidden content again.

Before the file goes to the translator

1. Keep the working file, and make a copy for translation.
2. In Word, accept or reject every tracked change and turn Track Changes off. Open the comments list, and delete every comment the translator does not need.
3. Show the hidden text in Word, and either make it visible text to translate or delete it. In PowerPoint, unhide each hidden slide and decide; remove the notes unless they are to be translated. In Excel, unhide the sheets, rows and columns, and delete or move out what is not to be translated; a very hidden sheet is not in the Unhide list, so check xl/workbook.xml as below.
4. Read the headers, footers and any watermark.
5. On Windows, go to File › Info › Properties › Advanced Properties (on a Mac, File › Properties; see Document Inspector on a Mac). Clear Title, Subject, Keywords and Comments if they do not belong in this copy, and delete the custom properties.
6. On Windows, Document Inspector (File › Info › Check for Issues › Inspect Document) finds and removes several of these in one pass. In its dialog box, clear the check boxes for what you decided to keep, such as the comments for the translator or notes to be translated, before you select Inspect; or, after the inspection, do not select Remove All next to those types. Microsoft recommends using it on a copy, "because it is not always possible to restore the data that the Document Inspector removes." On a Mac, see Document Inspector on a Mac.
7. Write the brief: which parts to translate, the instructions you took out of the comments, and the terms to keep.

How to check the copy yourself

1. Open the copy and look at File › Info: Author and Last Modified By, then Show All Properties; then the Custom tab of Advanced Properties.
2. For a closer look, make another copy, rename it to .zip and unzip it:
   • docProps/core.xml holds the author and the last person to save it; docProps/app.xml the company and the manager; docProps/custom.xml the custom properties.
   • In a Word file, search every word/*.xml part for <w:ins , <w:del , w:moveFrom, w:moveTo, any element ending in PrChange, w:tblGridChange, w:cellIns, w:cellDel and w:cellMerge, which mark tracked changes; a <w:comment element in word/comments.xml means comments remain, and word/people.xml lists people who commented or made changes; w:vanish marks hidden text, unless its w:val is 0, false or off.
   • In a presentation, show="0" or show="false" on the p:sld element of a file in ppt/slides marks a hidden slide; a ppt/notesSlides folder means notes pages remain (open them to see whether they hold text); the ppt/comments folder holds comments.
   • In a workbook, xl/workbook.xml lists every sheet, and a hidden one has state="hidden" or state="veryHidden"; parts whose names start with xl/comments or xl/threadedComments hold notes and comments, and xl/persons/person.xml the names of those who wrote threaded comments; in xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml and the other sheets, hidden="1" on a <row or <col marks a hidden row or column.
3. Search every part for a name, a price or a phrase you know was in the working file and should not be in the copy.

What ScrubDrop does

ScrubDrop reads a .docx, .xlsx or .pptx in your browser; the file is not uploaded. It lists what it finds: the properties, with the custom properties among them, the comments and notes with their authors, the tracked changes with who made them, hidden text, slides, sheets, rows and columns, speaker notes, and the other kinds it supports. For free, one file at a time, it removes the properties, removes the comments and accepts the tracked changes. Comments go all together or not at all: if a few of them are instructions for the translator, untick comments and delete the others in Office, or move the instructions to the brief. ScrubDrop Pro can instead reject all tracked changes, or accept or reject them author by author.

ScrubDrop Pro also removes the structural kinds, such as hidden text, slides, sheets, rows and columns, speaker notes and links to other files, and cleans several files at once and gives them back as a ZIP, which suits a batch of files going to the same agency. It removes notes pages as a whole. Text hidden through a style or the document's defaults, rather than formatted as hidden directly, is refused when you choose to remove hidden text, because ScrubDrop cannot yet tell exactly which text that is; remove the hidden formatting from the style in Word first, or untick hidden text. When Pro removes hidden sheets, rows or columns, defined names or links to other files, every formula on the sheets that stay is replaced by its last calculated value, so the figures look the same but no longer calculate. White or tiny text and cells outside the print area are listed but not removed, in either version. ScrubDrop does not decide what is to be translated: unhiding a slide or a paragraph you want translated is your step. It reads the cleaned file again with separate parsers before it offers it.

Questions

Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 26 October 2026. ScrubDrop is not affiliated with Microsoft.