How to Translate an EPUB Without Losing Its Chapters and Images

Translating a book should not mean losing the things that make it readable: its chapters, headings, paragraphs, and illustrations. A translated EPUB can keep that structure while replacing the readable text with another language. The words may take up more or less room after translation, so a reflowable book can repaginate on your reader, but its chapter order and non-text assets can stay with it.

Convert2EPUB can translate an existing EPUB, or convert a PDF or common document file into an EPUB in a chosen language. Here is what carries over, what does not, and what to check before sending the finished book to an e-reader.

What you can translate

Upload an EPUB to create a translated EPUB. You can also start with a PDF, DOCX, RTF, TXT, ODT, or HTML file and have the converter create the ebook and translate its text in the same job. The supported target languages are Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

Translation needs editable, reflowable text. Choose Auto or Reflowable output; Fixed Layout keeps each page as an image, so there is no text flow to translate.

What stays in the book

For an EPUB, the chapter text and navigation labels are translated, and the book's language metadata is updated to match the selected language. Images and other embedded assets remain in the book. Paragraphs and inline formatting stay in place so the translated text still belongs to the same chapter and section.

The page layout will not be pixel-for-pixel identical. Translated sentences are often longer or shorter than the originals, and the reader lays out the new text to fit its screen and font settings. That is expected in a reflowable EPUB; the book can still change font size and reflow instead of locking you to the original PDF page.

What translation does not change

Translation works on text the book exposes as text. Words baked into a picture—such as labels inside a chart, a photographed page, or text in an illustration—are part of the image and are not translated. Encrypted EPUB files are not supported. Code blocks and mathematical markup are kept as structured content rather than translated like prose.

If you start with a scanned PDF, OCR can recognize the page text before translation. It does not redraw or replace text inside embedded images, so labels in diagrams or illustrations may remain in the original language. Check pages with complicated tables, columns, or illustrations after the job to make sure the result fits your reading needs.

How to make a translated EPUB

1. Choose the source EPUB or document file you want to translate.
2. Turn on “Translate to another language” and choose the target language.
3. Keep the layout on Auto or Reflowable so the output contains text that can be translated.
4. Review the quote, including any OCR or Pro recognition needed for a PDF.
5. Start the job, then download the translated EPUB when it is ready.

How translation credits work

Translation uses one credit per 500 words. If you are translating a PDF or another source that also needs OCR or Pro recognition, those conversion credits are added to the translation estimate. Scanned PDF word counts are estimated from pages with readable text, so the quote is an estimate until the actual text is available. You see the estimate before processing starts, and unused reserved credits are returned if a job fails.

Translation requires a signed-in account and runs online. The book text is sent to OpenAI for translation; the desktop app converts locally and does not run book translation.

Give the result a quick read-through

Open the translated EPUB in the reader you plan to use. Check the table of contents, sample a few chapters, and look at pages with footnotes, dialogue, or technical terms. If the original includes important labels inside an image, keep the source handy as a reference because those words remain in the image's original language.