Translate PDF Skill

Translate PDF documents to any language while preserving the original structure, layout, colors, and styling.

The Problem

Translating PDF documents is typically painful:

Copy-paste loses all formatting
Online tools mangle the layout
Professional translation services are expensive and slow
Technical diagrams and org charts are especially difficult

The Solution

This Claude Code skill translates PDF text in place, preserving:

✅ Original layout and positions
✅ Background colors (yellow boxes, blue headers, etc.)
✅ Font sizes and text colors
✅ Document structure

Translation time: ~1 minute vs hours of manual work.

Requirements

Python 3.8+
pymupdf (pip install pymupdf)
Claude Code CLI

Installation

Method 1: Git Clone

git clone https://github.com/wshuyi/translate-pdf-skill.git
cp -r translate-pdf-skill/skills/translate-pdf ~/.claude/skills/

Method 2: Plugin Marketplace

/plugin install translate-pdf@wshuyi/translate-pdf-skill

Usage

Simply tell Claude what you want:

"Translate this PDF to Chinese"
"把这个PDF翻译成英文"
"Translate report.pdf to Japanese"

Claude will:

Extract all text from the PDF
Translate to target language
Replace text while preserving styling
Output translated PDF

Supported Languages

Language	Font
English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, etc.	helv
Simplified Chinese	china-ss
Traditional Chinese	china-ts
Japanese	japan
Korean	korea

Example

Input: Portuguese organizational chart (Suprimentos.pdf)

Command: "把这个PDF翻译成中文"

Output: Chinese version with identical layout and styling

How It Works

Extract: Parses PDF to get all text spans with positions, fonts, and colors
Translate: Claude translates each text string
Replace: Uses PDF redaction (transparent fill) to remove original text
Insert: Adds translated text at same positions with matching style

FAQ

Q: Does it work with scanned PDFs? A: No, this skill works with text-based PDFs. Scanned documents need OCR first.

Q: Will it change my PDF layout? A: No, the layout is preserved. Only the text content changes.

Q: What about images and charts? A: Images are preserved. Text within the PDF is translated.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE

Author

@wshuyi

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

wshuyi/translate-pdf-skill

README