PDFMathTranslate Guide

Overview

PDFMathTranslate is an open-source tool designed specifically for translating scientific and technical PDF documents while preserving mathematical formulas, tables, figures, and the overall layout structure. Traditional PDF translators often mangle equations and destroy formatting, making translated papers difficult to read. PDFMathTranslate solves this problem by intelligently detecting and preserving mathematical content during the translation process.

The tool leverages large language models for high-quality translation while maintaining the integrity of LaTeX-rendered equations, chemical formulas, and complex table structures commonly found in academic publications. It supports translation between dozens of language pairs, making it invaluable for researchers who need to read papers published in languages outside their expertise.

PDFMathTranslate has gained significant traction in the academic community with over 32,000 GitHub stars, reflecting the widespread need for reliable scientific document translation that respects the specialized formatting requirements of research papers.

Installation and Setup

Install PDFMathTranslate using pip in a Python environment (Python 3.8 or higher required):

pip install pdf2zh

For GPU-accelerated processing, install with CUDA support: