OpenOffice/LibreOffice extension that translates whole documents, whilst retaining some formatting.

• Iterates over paragraphs / text segments / and tables (only linebreaks kept)
• Utilizes Google translate (or DeepL, Microsoft Translate, MyMemory, PONS, or Yandex/Qcri/Linguee).
• And is therefore rather slow.
  (Writer freezes during process for long documents!)
• Still allows for text-selection mode translation (from original extension).

Install

Download the package file, and import it in LibreOffice via Tools → Extension Manager → Add.

Location	Features	Link
Source repository	Newest package, Linux-only, no bundled python dependencies	pagetranslate.oxt
LibreOffice Extensions	Older/stable versions, bundles python requests library	https://extensions.libreoffice.org/extensions/pagetranslate
OpenOffice Extensions	Full releases, AOO/LO/Windows compatible (bundles deep-translator+requests)	https://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/pagetranslate

For using the unbundled/development package, you should install Python dependencies on your system:
pip3 install -U requests deep-translator six

Usage

• Hit the T→🇬🇧 toolbar button to get entire document translated to English. Have some trust and patience for longer documents.
• The second button 🏴 translates to the local/system language.
• Or select a paragraph, to get a partial translation.
• Alternatively pick a menu entry from Tools > PageTranslate.
• The →System lang entry refers to your OpenOffice/Desktop setting.
• Whereas → Paragraph locale respects the text language as set in the Writer status bar.
• A manual selection dialog is brought up by the From ➜ To 🗺 menu entry. (Best used in MyMemory mode)
• Configure options in Tools→PageTranslate→Options...

Services

service	brief summary	lang_detect	error msgs	api key🔑	test quali	prvcy
ArgosNmt	Language combos hinge on trained models	langdetect	popup	-	+++++++	+++++
CommandLine	Diverse backends	mixed	log	-	+++++
DeepTransApi	Online interface API	mixed	popup	-	++++
DeepTranslator	Diverse services, text + dictionary	mixed	popup	-	+++++
DeeplApi	High quality AI translation, 15 langs	auto	popup	required	+	+++
DeeplWeb	15 langs, screen scraping access	auto	popup	-	+++++
DuckDuckGo	85 languages, MS Translte w/ privacy	auto	popup	-	+++++++++	++++
GoogleAjax	alternative/faster interface	auto	log	-	+++++++++
GoogleCloud	commercial GTrans variant	auto	popup	required		+
GoogleWeb	broadest language support (130)	auto	log	-	++++++++++
LibreTranslate	online instaces of Argos/OpenNMT	langdetect	popup	required	+++++++
MyMemory	Dictionary-based, 140 languages	langdetect	popup	-	+++++
PonsWeb	35 languages, screen scraping+API	auto	log	-	+++++	+
SysTran	professional service, 50 languages	auto	popup	required	++	++++

Caveats

• Generally you want to download the extension package from AOO. Those are usually full releases (2 to 20MB). The smaller package only makes sense for Linux/LibreOffice installations, because then you can automatically utilize local Python modules (pip install requests deep-translator).
• The plugin is also likely to crash (won't affect Writer) when encountering complex documents (embedded drawings, Calc sheets, OLE elements, etc). It's only been tested with flow text and text tables.
• Generally there's a log file in /tmp.
• Empty options page after update:
  • If the plugin doesn't show up in Tools→Options anymore, or the settings page is empty, then an update bug happened.
  • You'll have to clean up the extensions cache:
    rm -r ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/uno_packages/cache/
  • Just the cache dir. Then reinstall. But note that this might strip any other installed extensions (not sure).
  • Optionally also clean up rm -r ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/extensions/tmp/
• For runtime bugs see help/…/errors.duck

Extras

Two subprojects here are dingonyms and a standalone PageTranslate: tk_translate.

ToDo

• Figure out if para.CharLocale can be set to target language after translation.
• Consider lingva inclusion (but a Google Web proxy).
• Unify internal API lang=/source= handling, extract .skip() check, and outsource some of the common processing to main.
• Integrate deep-translator backends (Yandex, QCRI, Pons, Linguee) and language mapping. Perhaps offer as alternative to T-P and internal variants.
• Finalize DeepL web translation mode (for testing really). The API mode is untested, but likely faster because longer paragraphs can be translated at once. And reportedly it yields smoother/more natural translations. (No XML block translation yet.)
• Unfortunately not sure yet how to bundle requests.
• Nor how to craft an options/settings page.
• Support for TextFrames
• Figure out if getText() provides for some XML serialization, or how to traverse Paragraphs piece by piece (super slow mode: retain more formatting).
• Does not yet support anything but Writer documents. (Structure is entirely distinct for Draw/Impress).
• Not sure if the toolbar icons work at all, or if that's a bug in the Linux version of LibreOffice.