How to Translate Text in Any Mac App Instantly

The Problem With Translating Text on a Mac

If you work across multiple languages, you already know the routine. You are writing an email, reading a Slack message, or filling out a form in a language you do not fully command. You select the text, copy it, open a new browser tab, navigate to Google Translate or DeepL, paste the text, wait for the translation, copy the result, switch back to the original app, and paste the translated text where you need it.

That is at least eight separate steps, two application switches, and a guaranteed disruption to whatever you were doing. Multiply that by the dozens of translations many professionals handle every day, and you are losing serious time to a workflow that should be effortless.

The core frustration is not that translation tools are bad. Google Translate and DeepL produce excellent results. The frustration is that using them forces you out of your current context. You leave your email client, your document, or your messaging app. You break your train of thought. And when you return, you need a moment to re-orient before picking up where you left off.

There has to be a better way. And for Mac users, there is.

What macOS Offers Out of the Box

Apple introduced a system-level Translate feature in macOS Monterey. If you select text in certain apps, you can right-click and choose "Translate" from the context menu. A popover appears with the translation, and you can tap a button to copy it.

This is a step in the right direction, but it has real limitations:

• Limited app support. The system Translate feature only works in apps that use standard macOS text views. Many Electron-based apps (like Slack, VS Code, or Notion), web browsers, and custom text editors do not support it at all.
• Limited language pairs. Apple Translate supports roughly 20 languages. If you need to translate to or from Turkish, Polish, Hindi, Vietnamese, or many other widely spoken languages, you are out of luck.
• No inline replacement. The macOS feature shows you the translation in a popover. It does not replace your selected text. You still need to manually copy the result and paste it back, which is only marginally faster than using a browser tab.
• Right-click workflow. You have to select text, right-click, find the Translate option in the context menu, and then interact with the popover. It is functional, but it is not fast.

For casual, occasional translation of a phrase or two, the built-in feature is adequate. For anyone who translates text regularly as part of their work, it falls short.

A Better Approach: Translate Inline With Wordwand

Wordwand takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of pulling you out of your workflow to use a separate translation tool, it brings translation directly into whatever app you are already using.

Here is how it works: you select text, press a keyboard shortcut, choose "Translate to [language]," and the selected text is replaced with the translation. Inline. Instantly. No tab switching, no copy-pasting, no context menu navigation.

Because Wordwand operates at the system level on macOS, it works in virtually every application where you can select and edit text. That means Mail, Pages, Notes, Safari, Chrome, Slack, Discord, Notion, VS Code, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and hundreds of other apps. If you can highlight text in it, Wordwand can translate in it.

The translation itself is powered by advanced AI language models, which means you get natural, context-aware translations rather than the sometimes-stilted output of rule-based systems. The AI understands idioms, formality levels, and contextual meaning, producing translations that read as though a fluent speaker wrote them.

Step-by-Step: Translating Text With Wordwand

Getting started with translation in Wordwand takes just a few minutes. Here is the complete process, from installation to your first translated sentence.

1. Download and Install Wordwand

Visit wordwand.co and download the app. Wordwand is a native macOS application, so installation is as simple as dragging it to your Applications folder. Open it once to complete the initial setup and grant the necessary accessibility permissions that allow it to interact with text across your system.

2. Set Your Keyboard Shortcut

During setup, Wordwand assigns a default keyboard shortcut for activating its features. You can customize this in the app's preferences to whatever key combination feels natural. Many users prefer something like Control + Space or Option + W, but you can use any combination that does not conflict with your other shortcuts.

3. Select the Text You Want to Translate

Open any application and select the text you want translated. This can be a single word, a sentence, or multiple paragraphs. Wordwand handles any length of text.

4. Press Your Wordwand Shortcut

With text selected, press your configured keyboard shortcut. The Wordwand action menu appears, showing you the available text transformations.

5. Choose Your Target Language

Select the "Translate to [language]" option. If you translate frequently to the same language, Wordwand remembers your preferences and surfaces your most-used language at the top for faster access. You can also type the language name to filter the list quickly.

6. Review and Confirm

Wordwand replaces the selected text with the translation. The change happens inline, right where the original text was. If you are not satisfied with the result, a simple undo (Command + Z) restores the original text immediately.

That is it. Six steps, no app switching, and the entire process takes just a few seconds.

Supported Languages

Wordwand supports translation between more than 40 languages, covering the vast majority of the world's most spoken and most commercially important languages. Here is a selection of the supported languages:

• European languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovak, Slovenian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian
• Asian languages: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog, Bengali, Urdu
• Middle Eastern languages: Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Persian (Farsi)
• Other languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Swahili

Because Wordwand's translation is powered by AI language models, it handles nuances that many traditional translation engines miss. It understands formality registers, idiomatic expressions, and domain-specific terminology. Whether you are translating a legal clause from German, a casual text message in Portuguese, or technical documentation from Japanese, the output reads naturally in the target language.

Real-World Use Cases

Translation is not just for linguists and international businesses. Here are the everyday scenarios where inline translation saves significant time:

Emails and Professional Communication

You receive an email from a colleague or client in another language. Instead of copying the message to a translator, you select it and translate it in place to understand the content. When you draft your reply, you can write it in your native language and then select the entire response to translate it into the recipient's language before sending.

Slack and Team Messaging

In multinational teams, messages often arrive in multiple languages. With Wordwand, you can translate incoming messages instantly without leaving the Slack window. When you need to reply in someone else's language, select your typed response and translate it before hitting Enter.

Documents and Reports

Whether you are working in Pages, Word, or Google Docs, you can translate entire paragraphs or sections inline. This is particularly useful when you need to prepare bilingual documents, translate quoted material within a report, or quickly understand a document a colleague shared in another language.

Web Forms and Online Applications

Filling out government forms, visa applications, or international service registrations often requires entering information in a language you may not write fluently. Type your responses in your native language, select them, and translate them in place before submitting.

Social Media and Content Creation

Managing social media accounts that serve audiences in multiple languages becomes dramatically simpler. Draft your post once, then translate it for each audience. Because Wordwand's AI produces natural-sounding translations, the result does not read like machine-translated marketing copy.

Research and Learning

Students and researchers frequently encounter papers, articles, and source material in foreign languages. Select a passage, translate it inline to understand the content, and undo the translation to restore the original when you are done. It is faster than any dictionary or external translation tool.

Advanced Workflows: Combining Translation With Other Features

One of Wordwand's most powerful capabilities is the ability to chain multiple text transformations together. This opens up workflows that no standalone translation tool can match.

Translate, Then Fix Grammar

When you translate text, the result is usually grammatically correct. But if you have edited the translation manually or combined it with other text, you can select the modified passage and run Wordwand's grammar correction to polish it. This is especially useful when you are writing in a second language and want to make sure the final text is error-free.

Translate, Then Adjust Tone

Different languages have different conventions for formality. A sentence that sounds appropriately professional in English might come across as too casual when directly translated into Japanese or Korean. After translating, you can use Wordwand's tone adjustment feature to shift the text toward a more formal or casual register in the target language.

For example, you might write a quick internal note in English, translate it to German, and then adjust the tone to "formal" because your German client expects a certain level of professionalism in written communication.

Translate and Summarize

When you receive a long document in another language and just need the key points, you can translate it first and then use Wordwand's summarization feature to condense the content. Alternatively, you can summarize in the source language first and then translate the summary, which often produces more concise results.

Write in Your Language, Translate, and Enhance

Some people think most clearly in their native language but need to produce text in another. With Wordwand, you can write your thoughts naturally, translate them into the target language, and then use the "Enhance" feature to improve clarity and readability. The result is polished text in the target language that preserves your original meaning and intent.

How Wordwand Compares to Other Translation Options

There are several ways to translate text on a Mac. Here is how Wordwand stacks up against the most popular alternatives.

Google Translate (Web)

Google Translate is free, supports over 100 languages, and produces solid translations for most language pairs. However, using it requires switching to a browser, and there is no way to replace text inline. Every translation requires a copy-paste round trip. For occasional translations, it works fine. For frequent translations throughout the day, the context switching adds up quickly.

DeepL (Desktop App)

DeepL is widely regarded as producing higher-quality translations than Google Translate for European languages. The desktop app adds a shortcut (Command + C twice) to trigger translation, which is faster than using the web interface. DeepL now supports over 130 languages, a massive expansion from its European-focused origins. However, DeepL still opens its own window or popup to show results. You still need to copy the output and paste it back into your original app. The workflow is faster than a browser tab but still involves an extra step compared to true inline replacement.

Apple Translate (Built-in)

Apple's system-level translation is convenient when it works. It now supports roughly 20 languages, which is a meaningful improvement. However, it still does not replace text inline, and it is unavailable in many popular third-party applications. It is best suited for quick lookups rather than productive translation workflows.

Wordwand

Wordwand combines the broad language support and high-quality AI translations with a workflow that never takes you out of your current app. Text is replaced inline, the keyboard shortcut is faster than any right-click menu, and the ability to chain translations with grammar correction, tone adjustment, and other transformations makes it uniquely powerful. The tradeoff is that Wordwand is a paid application (with a free tier), while Google Translate and Apple Translate are free.

Feature	Google Translate	DeepL App	Apple Translate	Wordwand
Inline text replacement	No	No	No	Yes
Works in any app	No (browser only)	Partial	Limited	Yes
Languages supported	100+	130+	~20	40+
Keyboard shortcut	No	Yes	No	Yes
Tone adjustment	No	No	No	Yes
Grammar correction	No	No	No	Yes
Chained transformations	No	No	No	Yes
Offline support	Limited	No	Yes	No

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Wordwand Translation

Here are a few practical tips to improve your translation workflow:

1. Keep sentences short and clear. AI translation works best with well-structured input. If you are translating your own writing, break long compound sentences into shorter ones before translating. The output will be more accurate and natural.

2. Provide context when possible. If you are translating an ambiguous phrase, include the surrounding sentence or paragraph in your selection. More context helps the AI choose the correct meaning and register.

3. Use undo freely. Command + Z restores the original text instantly after any Wordwand transformation. There is no risk in trying a translation and reverting if it does not meet your needs.

4. Set a default target language. If you translate to the same language most of the time, configuring it as your default saves an extra selection step every time.

5. Chain transformations for polished results. Do not stop at translation. Use tone adjustment and grammar correction to produce text that sounds like it was written by a native speaker in the target language.

6. Translate both directions. Wordwand works equally well for understanding incoming text in foreign languages and for producing outgoing text in another language. Use it for both reading and writing workflows.

Making Translation Seamless on Mac

Translation should not be a separate task that pulls you out of your work. It should be as natural and frictionless as spell-check. With Wordwand, it is. Select, shortcut, translate, done. Your text is replaced inline, your flow is unbroken, and you can move on to the next thing.

Whether you are a business professional communicating with international clients, a student reading research papers in multiple languages, a content creator managing multilingual audiences, or simply someone who encounters foreign-language text in their daily Mac usage, inline translation changes how you work with languages on your computer.

The days of the copy-paste-switch-paste translation workflow are over. Your Mac can do better, and with Wordwand, it does.