Your first translation
To translate your first document, upload a file (or paste text), pick your source and target languages, and press translate. The whole loop takes a couple of minutes, and the Free plan covers it with no card.
On this page
How do I translate my first document?
On the dashboard, start with Upload file. Picking what kind of text it is (Novel or book, Blog post, Research paper and more) is optional: the next document you upload is set up with a style for that kind of text. If you came from one of our pages about a kind of text, that type is already picked, and the × on Set up for clears it.
- Bring your work in. Upload a DOCX, PDF, Markdown, or TXT file, paste raw text, or import from Notion or Google Drive. It’s parsed into blocks for you. No document at hand? Press Try our sample text for a one-page story; its first translation is free. When that run finishes, the story opens in Vision, the original and the translation side by side, with Upload a document to bring in your own.
- Pick your languages. Choose a source and one or more targets. The mode (Fast / Standard / Pro) is set per document and changeable per block; on the Free plan, translating starts on Pro.
- Translate. Under Translate, a short quote gives the price of the whole document and how far your balance reaches. Hit Translate and watch blocks land one by one. Then refine — edit a sentence, regenerate with a direction, or run a proofread pass.
- Export. Once every block is translated, Download in the editor sends it back out as Word, Markdown, Notion, or a Google Doc, with its formatting preserved.
What does a first translation cost?
Translation spends credits — 1 per source word in Fast or Standard mode, 3 in Pro. A 2,000-word document costs 2,000 credits in Standard. Editing, leaving comments, and exporting are free; asking the AI for alternatives or a rewrite shows its price on the button first. The Free plan gives you 5,500 credits a month to start.
Do I need a card to try Transept?
No. The Free plan gives you 5,500 credits a month with no card: about five pages translated with Pro mode and proofread with Standard, or 11 on Standard alone. Every feature of the editor is unlocked, and you only add a card if you move to a paid plan.
What if the translation isn’t right?
Refine it. Editing by hand and exporting are free, and so are the first alternatives for a sentence, which appear when you click into it. Asking for more, or regenerating a block with a direction like “more formal,” costs that text’s words at the model’s rate, and the price is on the button before you click.
Can I change the translation mode after I have started?
Yes. The mode is set per document but can be changed per block, so you can translate a whole draft in Fast or Standard and re-run only the passages that need Pro’s deeper reasoning. Each block shows which model produced it.
What happens to the formatting of my file?
It comes back. Transept imports DOCX, PDF, Markdown and TXT (or Notion and Google Drive) and exports to Word, Markdown, Notion or a Google Doc with the formatting preserved. A PDF uploaded as Same pages comes back on its own pages, with the translation written in. See Exports & integrations and PDFs, scans and comics.
Still stuck? Ask Literess in the app, or write to support@transept.ai.