CopyTranslator README

The project's README from github.com/CopyTranslator/CopyTranslator. As one markdown file: README.md.

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CopyTranslator

中文 Chinese

OpenTranslate

🎉 What's New

v12 Zhiwei - Large Language Model AI Translation Era

The v12 release introduces Large Language Model AI Translation! CopyTranslator can now integrate various translation services that comply with OpenAI API format, bringing smarter and more accurate translation experience.

Key Highlights:

See the v12 Release Notes for detailed updates.

Foreign language assisted reading and translation solution

Please update to latest version as soon as possible. This is a new version that you have never experienced before. Trust me, you will fall in love with it within minutes.

If you found it helpful to you, no need to follow or fork, just give me a star and recommend it to your friends around you.

(Online translation resources come from the Internet, copyright belongs to related websites, and this software is only for academic usage.)

This software is free and open source. If you find someone selling this software , please report it in the Issue.

Introduction

Preface

Researchers always have to read a lot of literature, and understanding the content of the literature has become the norm in scientific research life. However, when we copy the PDF content and paste it into the webpage translation, there may be extra line breaks that lead to garbled translation, and the translation does not match the Chinese reading habits. The translation results are very poor and you need to manually delete the line break, and CopyTranslator can help us solve this problem quickly and perfectly.

Just open the CopyTranslator and copy the PDF text to clipboard, CopyTranslator will watch the clipboard changes, then it will process the clipboard contents (such as removing extra line breaks, etc.) and display the translation results. The translation effect is greatly improved compared to the direct copy and paste to the web version of the translation, and the time required for translation is greatly reduced. With the powerful Google translation API, the translation quality is guaranteed. There are also a wealth of options you can set, such as automatically copy translation results to the clipboard, Incremental Copy, Smart Translation, etc., it effectively improve people's reading and translation efficiency of foreign literature.

After several iterations, CopyTranslator has became more and more powerful as well as user-friendly. It is recommended to read the full User Manual to make best use of it.

Core usage

Open a webpage/PDF, select the text to be translated, copy the text to the clipboard, CopyTranslator will listens to the clipboard change, and process the clipboard content (such as removing extra line breaks, etc.), translate it, and display. Just copy the text,CopyTranslator will immediately give the translation result, effectively improving your work efficiency.**

Features

Copy=Translate

Greatly simplify the steps required for translation, just copy the text to the clipboard, and wait to view the translation results in the next second, enjoy the WYSIWYG pleasure, and we also have the Tap to Copy mechanism , making it easier for you to copy text.

Solve the problem of PDF copy translation

CopyTranslator is specifically optimized for English and Chinese pdf line breaks and sentence endings, basically solving the problem caused by extra sentence breaks and line breaks. The following figure shows the translation results using CopyTranslator. It's obvious that the translation effect is greatly improved compared to directly copy and paste to the online translator. At the same time, with the powerful google translation API, the translation quality is guaranteed, and the translation.google.cn used is also faster to connect, no need to worry about network problems.

Multi segments Co-translation

More efficient, while keeping the original segment as much as possible.

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Powerful Focus Mode

Unparalleled powerful focus mode, while it's just a simple text box, it can meet the needs of 90% of daily translation!

Smart Translation

CopyTranslator will automatically recognize the copied text, intelligently translate according to the set source language and target language, for example, set source language to English,and the target language to be Simplified Chinese. If you copy English, it will be translated into Chinese, and if you copy Chinese, it will be translated into English.

Smart Dictionary

For phrase or word, you will see a more detailed explanations.

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Incremental Copy

Append the copied text to the source other than replace it, especially useful when the paragraph is separated in different page. Check the Incremental Copy option to enable it.

Dual Mode Free Switching to Cope with Different Scenes

Customization

Other features

Please refer to the Documentation to learn more about CopyTranslator

User Manual/Documentation/Homepage

Link: User Manual

Download/Install

Link: Install Guide

After several iterations, CopyTranslator has became more and more powerful as well as user-friendly. It is recommended to read the full User Manual to make best use of it.

Reprint statement

This software is free open source software, the developer is Elliott Zheng, STAR and PR are welcomed. Please attach the project address when forwarding, and the reprinting CopyTranslator without project homepage/software official website is infringement.

Acknowledgements

CopyTranslator's rebirth depends on the contributions of many devoted people. As the limited space, there is a detailed list here: Acknowledgements.

License

The code is licensed under GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE 2.0. For more details, read the LICENSE file.

Contributors

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):


Jeff Huang
🌍
Mārtiņš Zemlickis
🎨
黎紫珊
📦
Daryl.Xu
📦
Andy AO
💻
dEN5
🌍

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

CopyTranslator (CopyTranslator/CopyTranslator)

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18.1K ·GitHub
CopyTranslator
What is this?A desktop assistant for reading foreign-language text: copy any text, e.g. from a PDF, and CopyTranslator watches the clipboard, cleans the text up and immediately shows the translation.
Is it a website, or a program I install on my computer?It is a desktop program you install, built on Electron and Vue — it runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and listens to the clipboard in the background.
How do I get it onto my machine?Download a ready installer for your OS via the Install Guide linked in the README; regular users do not need to build anything — the source uses vue-cli-service with electron-builder.
Does the AI translation in v12 need an API key or a paid plan?Not necessarily: a built-in StepFun engine with the free step-3.5-flash model works out of the box. OpenAI, DeepSeek, Moonshot, Zhipu AI, Alibaba Cloud Bailian and Ollama can be added and managed in the settings UI.
What does it actually fix about copying text out of PDFs?Pasting PDF text into web translators garbles it with extra line breaks; CopyTranslator is optimized for English and Chinese PDF line breaks and sentence endings, so translations come out clean.
Which languages can it translate?Whatever Google Translate supports. Smart Translation also auto-detects direction between your set source and target languages — copy English and you get Chinese, copy Chinese and you get English.
Does it need an internet connection, and are there other catches?It leans on online translation resources from the internet and is meant for academic usage; classic engines need a connection, though v12 can also translate with local models via Ollama.
Is it really free, and what can I do with the code?Free and open source under GPL-2.0 — the author even asks users to report anyone selling copies. Being copyleft, derivative works must stay open under the same license.
What is the difference between Focus mode and Contrast mode?Contrast mode shows the original text against the translation; Focus mode is just a small translation-only window that covers 90% of daily translation — with it, enable Stay on top and Listen Clipboard.
Does it double as a dictionary for single words?Yes — Smart Dictionary shows more detailed explanations when you copy a word or phrase, displayed only in Focus mode with colored text so entries are easy to tell apart.
What is Incremental Copy for?It appends each newly copied fragment to the source text instead of replacing it, so you can translate a paragraph that is split across several PDF pages in one go.
Can I customize how it looks and behaves?Yes — interface style, font and background are customizable, the global hotkey can be redefined, and you can create or download locale files for the interface language.
What are similar projects?PDFMathTranslate, easyread, pot-desktop, FluentRead, zotero-pdf-translate, msime-windows, Index-Translate, gpt_academic
Which topics is it in?translate, machine-translation, dictionary, gplv2, academic, translation, openai-compatible, electron, pdf, vue, productivity, research
Creator
CopyTranslator
Size
10.7 MB
Stars
18.1K
Updated
CommitFeb 23Releasev12.1.0Feb 23
Age
8y
Commits · 90 Days