Translate

If you're a Notepad++ user looking for a simple means to translate text between various languages without having to resort to a web browser or any other type of application, you can resort to Translate.

Translate is a tool capable of translating words or phrases between various languages while you're working in Notepad++. It's powered by two engines (MyMemory and Bing) and gives you the possibility to configure some basic settings.

It's incredibly simple to get this extension up and running, since all you have to do is extract the DLL file from the downloaded archive and copy it to the "plugins" folder of the text editor.

This works for both the installer and portable editions of Notepad++. Make sure to relaunch the word processor if it was already running beforehand. Next, you can access Translate from "Plugins" in the menu bar.

You can get started by picking the preferred translation engine between MyMemory and Bing. Both services are free, but MyMemory has usage limits and you have to obtain a Client ID and Client Secret to be able to use Bing.

In the following step, you can access the language settings panel to pick the source and output language. Unfortunately, the add-on doesn't have a feature for autodetecting the input, and you have to return to this panel each time you want to change the source and destination languages.

To be able to translate something (Ctrl+Alt+Z), it's necessary to select a word or phrase first. You can also perform the reverse translation by swapping the input and output language (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Z), and translate CamelCase or underscore_case (Ctrl+Alt+X).

Unfortunately, we've come across some stability issues with the latest Notepad++ version in our tests, as the text editor crashed whenever we attempted to translate something.