The Question Everyone Asks: Can Baidu Translate Handle PDFs?
Yes. But formatting? Gone.
Ran the same 10-page document through Baidu Translate web and PDFTranslate — scored across five dimensions.
Results
| Dimension | Baidu Translate | PDFTranslate |
|---|---|---|
| Translation accuracy | 7.5 | 8.0 |
| PDF layout preservation | 1.0 | 8.5 |
| CJK character handling | 8.5 | 8.0 |
| Speed (10 pages) | 3 min | 2 min |
| Free tier | 500K chars/mo | 200 pages/mo |
Layout Preservation: Where Baidu Loses
Tables become plain text. Two-column layout collapses to one. Image captions bleed into body paragraphs. If you need a PDF to send to a client, Baidu is not the answer.
Surprise Finding: Chinese Internet Slang
Baidu handles Chinese internet slang better than expected. "内卷", "躺平", "凡尔赛" — all translated accurately. This likely comes down to Baidu's training corpus, which includes massive volumes of Chinese web text.