Technical translation services for engineering, energy and industry
Technical translation is what Eurovertis does most and best: more than ten years of manuals, data sheets, specifications, drawings and project documentation for HVAC, railway, mechanical and electrical engineering, power plants and renewable energy, machinery and equipment, household appliances, environmental and agricultural technology, and the planning and approval documents behind construction and other large projects. Translated by linguists with an engineering background, in more than 30 languages, with a fixed quote within one business hour.
Why technical documents need technical translators
A manual is an instruction to act. If a torque value, a wire colour, a pressure rating or a safety warning is translated loosely, the result is a failed commissioning, a rejected tender or an accident report. Technical translation is therefore an engineering task as much as a linguistic one, and we staff it that way: translators who have studied or worked in the relevant discipline, who read drawings and schematics, and who know the standards the document refers to.
Every technical project at Eurovertis runs on three controls. A client glossary fixes the name of every component, assembly and parameter before translation starts, drawing on your existing documentation, part lists and preferred terms. A translation memory stores every sentence we translate for you, so a revised manual or a new product variant is translated consistently with the previous version and costs less. A second technical linguist checks the translation against the source, including every number, unit, cross-reference and figure caption, before anything is delivered.
Units, number formats, standards references and safety-symbol conventions are adapted to the target market, so a document prepared for Germany follows DIN and EN conventions and one prepared for the United States follows the formats its readers expect.
Technical documents we translate daily
- Operating, installation, commissioning and maintenance manuals
- Technical and data sheets, product specifications, catalogues
- Engineering drawings, P&IDs, electrical schematics, bills of materials
- Tender and procurement documentation, technical offers
- Planning, permitting and approval documents for construction and infrastructure projects
- Test reports, certificates, declarations of conformity, risk assessments
- Safety data sheets and safety instructions
- Environmental impact assessments and monitoring reports
- Software, HMI and control-system text, error messages, help systems
- Training materials, work instructions and standard operating procedures
Fields we specialise in
Each field has its own translators, its own glossary base and its own set of standards. These are the areas where we have the deepest experience.
HVAC and building services translation
Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration systems: installation and service manuals, system specifications, heat-pump and chiller documentation, control and BMS documentation, commissioning protocols, energy performance and F-gas documentation.
Railway translation
Rolling stock and infrastructure: vehicle maintenance manuals, signalling and interlocking documentation, track and overhead line specifications, TSI compliance files, safety cases, tender documentation and operating rules for railway undertakings.
Mechanical engineering translation
Machinery and production equipment: operating manuals, assembly and maintenance instructions, technical drawings, bills of materials, hydraulic and pneumatic documentation, Machinery Directive and Machinery Regulation compliance files, risk assessments.
Electrical engineering translation
Low- and medium-voltage equipment, switchgear, drives, automation and control systems: wiring diagrams, PLC and HMI text, EMC and Low Voltage Directive documentation, test and type-approval reports, installation instructions.
Power plant documentation and planning
Thermal, hydro, gas and combined-cycle plants: feasibility studies, planning and permitting documents, EPC contracts and specifications, operation and maintenance manuals, grid connection and substation documentation, outage and inspection reports.
Renewable energy documents
Wind, solar, biomass and energy-storage projects: project development and permitting files, turbine and inverter documentation, grid-code compliance, environmental and noise assessments, O&M contracts, investor and tender documentation.
Technical equipment and machinery
Industrial equipment, tools, packaging and processing lines, lifting and construction machinery: user and service manuals, spare-parts catalogues, quick-start guides, declarations of conformity, training materials.
Household appliances
White goods, heating and water appliances, small electricals and consumer electronics: user manuals and quick-start guides, safety instructions, energy labels and product fiches, packaging, product listings and app text, in every market language at once.
Environment and agriculture
Water and waste treatment, emissions and monitoring, environmental impact assessments; agricultural machinery, irrigation, livestock and processing technology, crop-protection and fertiliser documentation, regulatory submissions.
Technical and data sheets
Product data sheets, material and safety data sheets, specifications and catalogue pages, where consistency of terminology, units and layout across hundreds of similar documents matters most. Translation memory keeps them identical and inexpensive.
Construction and large-project documentation
Documents for planning, permitting and confirming construction, infrastructure and industrial projects: design briefs, technical specifications, building permit applications, expert reports, tender and contract documents, site instructions, as-built and handover documentation.
Other technical fields
Automotive, aerospace, oil and gas, mining, water utilities, telecommunications and medical devices. Describe the document and we will confirm which specialist translators are available for it.
Formats, tools and layout
Technical documentation rarely lives in Word. We translate directly in the formats your documentation team uses and return files that are ready to publish:
- Structured documentation: XML, DITA, DocBook, HTML, Markdown, XLIFF and other CAT-tool exchange formats
- Desktop publishing: InDesign (IDML), FrameMaker, QuarkXPress, with layout adjusted for text expansion in the target language
- CAD and drawings: text exported from AutoCAD (DWG and DXF), SolidWorks, Inventor and similar systems, returned for re-import or placed directly
- Software: resource files, JSON, PO, CSV and database exports for HMI, PLC and app text
- Scanned and legacy documents: OCR and re-creation of layout where no editable source exists
Your existing translation memories and term bases (TMX, TBX, SDL, memoQ, Phrase) are imported at the start and returned updated at the end, so the assets stay yours.
Standards and regulations we work with
Our technical translators translate with the relevant standards and regulations open beside the text, so references, definitions and required wording match what the target-market authority expects. Typical references include EN, ISO, IEC and DIN standards; the EU Machinery Directive and Machinery Regulation; the Low Voltage, EMC, Pressure Equipment and ATEX directives; the Ecodesign and Energy Labelling regulations for appliances; the Construction Products Regulation; the railway interoperability framework (TSIs); and national building and environmental codes.
Where a document will be submitted to an authority, for example a building permit application or an environmental assessment, we can add a certified or notarised translation and arrange an apostille.
How a technical translation project runs
Analysis and quote
We analyse the files, identify repetition and existing translation-memory matches, and quote a fixed price and delivery date within one business hour.
Terminology
Key terms are extracted and agreed with you (or taken from your documentation) before translation starts. One glossary per product line, maintained for every future project.
Translation and technical review
A translator with the relevant engineering background translates in a CAT tool with your glossary and memory; a second technical linguist reviews every segment, number and reference.
Layout and delivery
Files are returned in the original format with layout adjusted; drawings and screenshots are checked in context. Your memory and glossary are updated and remain available for the next revision.
Questions about technical translation
Do your technical translators have engineering qualifications?
Technical projects are assigned to translators who have studied or worked in the relevant discipline (mechanical, electrical, civil, energy or process engineering, HVAC, railway) in addition to their linguistic qualification. For specialised fields the review is also done by a second technical linguist, so no document leaves without two sets of expert eyes on it.
Can you translate a 400-page manual on a tight deadline?
Yes. Large manuals are split across a team of translators working in the same translation memory and glossary in real time, which keeps terminology consistent across the whole document, and a single reviewer checks the assembled text. Tell us the deadline and we confirm feasibility together with the quote.
How do you keep terminology consistent across our products and languages?
Each client has one glossary per product line and one translation memory per language pair. Both are applied automatically in the CAT tool and updated after every project, and your feedback is recorded in them, so a corrected term is corrected everywhere from then on.
Do you work with drawings, CAD files and screenshots?
Yes. Text is exported from AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Inventor and similar systems, translated with the surrounding documentation for context, and returned for re-import, or placed directly in the drawings by our DTP team. Screenshots and figure callouts are translated and checked in context.
Do you translate between two foreign languages, for example German to Polish?
Yes, directly, by a translator who is a native speaker of the target language and fluent in the source language, without an intermediate English version. This matters in technical texts, where every intermediate step introduces terminology drift.
Can you post-edit a machine translation of our technical documentation?
Yes. For large volumes of lower-risk content, such as spare-parts catalogues or internal procedures, our technical editors correct a machine-translated draft against your glossary and bring it to a professional standard at a lower cost. For safety-relevant documents we recommend full human translation with technical review.
Send us a manual, a data sheet or a full project file
You will have a fixed quote within one business hour, with the repetition discount from your translation memory already applied.