Latex to text (help to translation)

Let's translate

Do you need to translate your work in LaTeX into a foreign language? Don't have the time or skills to do it? Why not let a computer do it for you?

Machine translation has made huge progress and the text produced is quite good.

Issue with maths

However automatic translators don't like mathematics and LaTeX file. We provide here a tool to hide mathematics to the machine so that you can translate any scientific text from one language to another.

It works!

These tools have been used to translate the book Python au lycée to Python in high school, more than 200 pages, in 15 workdays. See GitHub Exo7.

Requirements

• Your original LaTeX file,

• a Python3 installation and all the Python files you will find in the bin/ directory,

• and a translator like DeepL Translator or Google Translate.

Operations

• Use python3 latextotext.py toto.tex to transform a LaTeX file to a text file toto.txt. You will get an additional dictionary toto.dic.

• Don't panic if you see lots of tags €1234€, they replace maths and LaTeX commands!

• Use automatic translation on the text file, I recommend DeepL Translator, save the file in your target langage as new_toto.txt.

• Recover your LaTeX file with python3 texttolatex.py new_toto.txt toto.dic, you will get a file new_toto.tex in your target langage with your original maths.

• You certainly need to check and correct the translation.

Example

1. Start from a file maths.tex written in French:

	...
	Soient $f$ et $g$ deux fonctions continues de $\mathbf{R}$ vers $\mathbf{C}$.
	...

2. Execute python3 latextotext.py maths.tex.

3. You will get a file maths.txt:

	...
	Soient €0€ et €1€ deux fonctions continues de €2€ vers €3€.
	...

4. And a file maths.dic:

	0: $f$
	1: $g$
	2: $\mathbf{R}$
	3: $\mathbf{C}$

5. Translate the file maths.txt to English using DeepL and name the translation new_math.txt:

	...
	Let be €0€ and €1€ two continuous functions from €2€ to €3€.
	...

6. Execute python3 texttolatex.py new_maths.txt maths.dic to get a file new_maths.tex:

	...
	Let be $f$ and $g$ two continuous functions from $\mathbf{R}$ to $\mathbf{C}$.
	...

7. Adjust the translation by hand:

	...
	Let $f$ and $g$ be two continuous functions from $\mathbf{R}$ to $\mathbf{C}$.
	...

Advice if you use ChatGPT for translation

• The size limit for a message to ChatGPT-4o seems around 6500-8500 characters. Above the limit, ChatGPT-4o usually hallucinates or freezes. Below the limit, ChatGPT-4o can still occasionally hallucinate, replacing a tag with another tag: you should check your translated pdf carefully!

• You may need to repeat the instructions to ChatGPT in every message, since ChatGPT's memory seems around 8000 characters.

• You may manage to use ChatGPT to translate LaTeX files without this software. Yet, this software can save characters, thus reduce ChatGPT usage. This can save you time and be more ecological (since ChatGPT consumes a fair amount of energy).

• You can adapt and use the prompt below.

Translate from French to English extracts from my article about mathematics.
Do not replace the patterns €number€. They are tags standing for LaTeX code.
When punctuation seems missing after a tag, it's probably part of what the tag stands for.
So, DO NOT add missing punctuation after a tag.
Your output will be encapsulated in blockquote markdown (```like this```).
Consider using the following dictionary, in the format "{original:correct translation}", updated from your previous mistranslations.
{
partie:subset
Abélien:Abelian
application:map
noté:denoted by
}
##
```
Text to translate.
```