The PDF Language Barrier
Google Chrome features a robust, built-in translation tool that automatically offers to translate web pages written in a language different from your system default. This is incredibly useful for standard HTML websites. However, Chrome also acts as a built-in PDF viewer. Sometimes, when you open a PDF document in a foreign language directly within the browser, Chrome’s translation engine attempts to intercept the file and automatically translate the text layer of the PDF. This process is highly experimental and frequently results in garbled formatting, overlapping text, or a completely unreadable document, ruining the layout the PDF format was specifically designed to preserve.
Disabling Translation for Specific Languages or Sites
To preserve the original formatting of your documents and stop Google Chrome from automatically attempting to translate PDF files, you need to manage your translation settings for that specific language.
The most effective way to handle this is when the translation prompt appears. When you open the PDF and the Google Translate icon (a small ‘G’ and a character) pops up in the right side of the address bar, click it. A small menu will appear offering to translate the page. Click the three vertical dots (Options) inside that small translation menu. From the dropdown list, select Never translate [Language] (e.g., “Never translate Spanish”). This will prevent Chrome from automatically attempting to translate any page or PDF in that language in the future. If you want to allow translation for standard web pages but just stop it on a specific site where you view PDFs, you can choose Never translate this site instead. You can manage these exceptions later by going to Chrome’s Settings > Languages > Google Translate.