Presentation Translator for PowerPoint help and FAQs
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Customizing Speech in Presentation Translator
Currently, customization is available for both text translation and speech translation in the Presentation Translator add-in for PowerPoint.
To learn more about customizing the slide content to fit your domain/content, visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/translator/apps/presentation-translator/#how-it-works
How do I subtitle my presentation using Presentation Translator?
- Download and install the PowerPoint add-in from www.aka.ms/presentationtranslator
- Open any PowerPoint presentation
- Go to the Slide Show ribbon and click on Start Subtitles
- Select the language you’ll be speaking, the language you would like to display subtitles in, the microphone source, and whether you would like to utilize the Custom speech recognition feature for specialized content.
- Your PowerPoint presentation should go into Presentation mode with the subtitles showing in a window at the bottom of the screen.
- The first slide of the PowerPoint will display the conversation and QR code for audience members to follow along in the language of their choice using the Microsoft Translator app on their chosen device
How do I translate the text on the slides?
- Download and install the PowerPoint add-in from www.aka.ms/presentationtranslator
- Open any PowerPoint presentation
- Go to the Slide Show ribbon and click “Translate Slides”
- Click on “Translate Slides”
- Select the Slide Language and the Translate To language. Click “Translate Slides”.
How to save the text of your transcript
To save the transcript of your presentation in the caption language:
- Open your presentation in PowerPoint
- Go to the Slide Show ribbon
- Click on Start Subtitles
- Fill out the languages and click on Start Subtitles
- When you are done with the presentation you will see a box at the bottom of the screen. At the top right of that box you will see 3 dots.
- Click on those 3 dots
- Click on Save Transcript
- You will be prompted to save the file and it will be saved as a .txt file
You can now open the file and select the text which you can copy to a Word Document or email.
How to save the text of your transcript
To save the transcript of your presentation in the language you chose for the subtitles please do the following:
- Open your presentation in PowerPoint
- Go to the Slide Show ribbon
- Click on Start Subtitles
- Fill out the languages and click on Start Subtitles
- When you are done with the presentation you will see a box at the bottom of the screen. At the top right of that box you will see 3 dots.
- Click on those 3 dots
- Click on Save Transcript
- You will be prompted to save the file and it will be saved as a .txt file
You can now open the file and select the text which you can copy to a Word Document or email.
What do I do if the download fails?
- Check to see that you are running a compatible Windows Operating System and version of Microsoft office. You can find the list of system requirements here.
Please note this add-in will not work on Office for Mac, Android, iOS or web. - Determine which version of Microsoft PowerPoint you have installed:
- Open PowerPoint
- Select “Blank presentation”
- Click on “File” in Ribbon menu
- Click on “Account”
- Click on “About PowerPoint”
- A dialog box will appear. The first line of text will indicate whether you have a 32 bit or 64 bit version of Powerpoint.
- Make note of the version, and select the proper installer (see below)
- Lastly, make sure that you have the prerequisites installed:
How do I get my language supported?
Text Languages
We add new languages periodically. In the process of adding a new language to the automatic translation system, the most important learning material is existing high-quality translations—the same text in two languages.
A significant amount, typically 1+ million words of this type of text, is needed to build a reasonable-quality machine translation system for a particular language pair. Find out how machine translation works.
If you are a community or organization working on creating a new language system for Microsoft Translator, reach out to custommt@microsoft.com for more information.
Speech Languages
Speech recognition is a totally different process than translation. It requires a whole new set of data: hundreds of hours of recorded audio and their associated transcriptions and trainings of our machine learning based engines to become available.
We continue to release improvements to the quality of our existing languages and to expand on our coverage of languages from around the world so that more people can use Microsoft Translator in their own language.
If there’s a language you would like to see added, let us know on our user forum. If someone has already mentioned a language you’re interested in, you can cast an additional vote.
Stay tuned on our blog, Facebook, or Twitter for updates to our language coverage.
Is the Microsoft Translator app free?
The Microsoft Translator App is free of charge.
If you’re interested in using the Microsoft Translator API for business, visit our business site.
I’m giving a presentation or a lecture. What settings should I use?
Turn on the Presenter mode toggle in the live feature Settings pane while giving a presentation. This will unmute your microphone for the duration of the presentation.
If you are the conversation host, turning on Presenter mode will also mute other participants to prevent interruptions during the presentation.
I’m trying to enter a conversation using the five-letter code. Why do I see the “invalid conversation code” error?
Troubleshoot in the following order:
- Did the host of the conversation lock new participants from joining? If so, this is the message that will appear on screen.
- If the host has not locked out new participants:
- Make sure the five-letter code you entered is correct.
- Verify the conversation is still active. A conversation ceases to exist when the conversation host ends the conversation or if there are no participants active in the conversation.
Speech translation languages: what is available for which feature?
Visit our languages page for complete list of languages and features in the app.
Translation mistakes
The translation system is constantly learning, making corrections, and improving its output. In some instances, it can create errors, especially when the phrase lacks context.
Visit our machine translation page to learn more about how it works.
If you believe you’ve found a bug, please submit a ticket.
Troubleshooting voice translations
- Are you online (WiFi or a data connection)? Our voice translation feature works only while online.
- Are you trying to speak one of our 11 speech languages? Check out our Languages page to see if we support your speech language.
- Make sure the right language is picked as the “From” language.
- Speak clearly, hopefully without background noise. Translator better recognizes speakers of the languages’ native tongue.
- Translator works best when translating full sentences.
What’s the difference between starting a conversation and joining a conversation?
By starting a conversation: a user creates a new conversation with a unique code which can be shared with others. Other participants can use this code to enter the conversation in the language of their choice.
By joining a conversation: a user inputs a conversation code to join an ongoing conversation with one or more people in it.
Why do I need to use a headset to use this product?
A headset provides a close-talking microphone that produces a higher quality of recognition for the user’s speech and is less likely to pick up noise from your environment.
Using a headset, a lapel microphone or a bluetooth microphone will result in the best quality of speech recognition and therefore have improved translations compared to a laptop or a PC’s default microphone.
Why do I repeatedly see “disconnected” messages while in a conversation?
Users will often see “disconnected” messages on account of poor internet connectivity. If you are repeatedly seeing “disconnected” messages while in a conversation, try switching to a different internet network or try switching from a cellular network to WiFi to resolve the issue.
Why is my language not supported for speech?
Speech recognition is a totally different process than translation. It requires a whole new set of data: hundreds of hours of recorded audio and their associated transcriptions and trainings of our machine learning based engines to become available.
We continue to release improvements to the quality of our existing languages and to expand on our coverage of languages from around the world so that more people can use Microsoft Translator in their own language.
Stay tuned on our blog, Facebook, and Twitter feeds for updates to our language coverage.
Offensive translation mistake
To report an offensive translation, submit a bug by clicking on Contact the Translator Team on this page.
What languages are supported by Microsoft Translator?
View our list of languages supported for both speech and text translation.
Why are the FAQs not written in my language?
Our help pages are written in English. However, you can translate the help texts to one of many languages by scrolling to the top of this page and locating the language box below the site navigation.
Click or tap to expand the language menu, and select your desired language.
Can't find your issue? Contact us.
