Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint natively supports translation, allowing you to translate your slides and provide translated subtitles to your presentations in real time.
Microsoft Office products offer translation using the AI-powered Translator service. Learn more about Translator’s text and speech translation.
Translate text
To translate text in PowerPoint, select the text then navigate to the Review tab and select Translate.
For complete instructions on using Translator to translate text in PowerPoint, watch this quick tutorial.
Real time presentation subtitles
You can provide translated subtitles to your presentations on the Slide Show ribbon tab by selecting Subtitle Settings.
- Use Spoken Language to see the voice languages that PowerPoint can recognize and select the one you want. This is the language that you will be speaking while presenting.
- Use Subtitle Language to see which languages PowerPoint can display on-screen as captions or subtitles and select the one you want. This is the language of the text that will be shown to your audience. Choosing the same language as your Spoken Language allows you to provide closed captioning. This is especially relevant for accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing.
You can turn subtitles on and off by using the subtitle toggle in the Slide Show View or Presenter View.
Learn more about adding subtitles and captioning in the Microsoft Office website.
PowerPoint Live Presentations
If your presentation requires subtitles in multiple languages at once, PowerPoint’s Live Presentation feature is native within PowerPoint for the web. With Live Presentations, audience members can see a presentation on their own devices and read live subtitles in their preferred language while you speak.
The video below is an overview of the Live Presentation feature.
Live Presentations is currently only available for PowerPoint for the web. To use the feature, you will first need to save your presentation to the web.
To get started with Live Presentations open your slide deck in PowerPoint for the web and go to the Slide Show tab and check your audience setting. Click the drop arrow next to Present Live to select who should be able to connect to this presentation.
Next, select Present Live and your presentation will begin with a screen that shows a customized QR code. Your audience can point their device cameras at the QR code, tap the link that appears over the QR code, and PowerPoint Live will load your presentation in their web browser. There’s nothing for them to install.
Once your audience has loaded the presentation they will see your spoken words transcribed on the screen in near real-time. If an audience member would like to have your spoken presentation translated for them into a different language, they can tap the language indicator and select from one of other languages and dialects.
As you are presenting, you can turn the microphone off and on using slideshow toolbar:
Learn more about Live Presentations in Microsoft Support.
Multilingual Q and A
You can host a multilingual Q and A following your presentation using Microsoft Translator’s live conversation feature. Learn more here.
Presentation Translator
The Presentation Translator add-in for PowerPoint will no longer be available for download beginning July 31, 2020. If you have already downloaded the add-in, it will continue to work however we will no longer be providing technical support or updates. You can use the native features in PowerPoint to add live subtitles and captions to your presentations. Learn more above.
