PowerTranslator

When adding new functionality to a project as complex as an operating system, its developers have to make sure they avoid crossing the fine line between a comprehensive and bloated feature set that can either tremendously enhance the user experience or bog down the performance on less powerful devices.

In their quest to respond to community feedback, Microsoft sought to bring a multitude of extra utilities that cater to power users’ needs by reviving a popular project known as PowerToys, a completely optional set of tools that can be taken a step further by adding plugins such as PowerTranslator.

With most of the tasks carried out on modern computers taking place through the browser in an attempt to make the most of the services with online-based capabilities, many users resort to keeping the web apps running in their dedicated tabs throughout their workflows. However, since the website interfaces cater to both touch-screens and mouse cursors, those with keyboard-focused usage patterns can be placed at a disadvantage, which is where PowerToys’ Run module comes into play, letting you perform a wide variety of actions in an input box by triggering a hotkey combination.

One of PowerToys’ greatest strengths concerns the ability to develop and publish plugins meant to work in unison with its core modules, thus removing the need for programmers to create a separate process that could instead be attached to the already existing feature. One example is PowerTranslator, which allows users to quickly translate words and phrases without leaving the window of the word processor or other program they are currently in, ultimately speeding up their workflows.

Despite its focus on directly translating from any language to both simplified and traditional Chinese outputs, users can also combine a hyphen and a right-facing arrow “->” alongside a two-letter code for extra languages such as English, French and Russian. Finally, on top of being able to copy the generated translation for maximum convenience, the plugin also provides an option to change its direct activation command to prevent any potential clashes with other functions that may be utilizing the same hotkey.

Whether you have a keyboard-based workflow or you simply wish to avoid installing a separate software for times that require a quick translation, PowerTranslator might be the right tool for your use-case, given the seamless way in which its functions are implemented in Microsoft’s PowerToys.