Languages and formats. What Corrext accepts, and what it gives back
The reference page, without approximations: the four native languages and the 30 on the platform, the office formats accepted, the size and character limits, and what happens to the layout of your document.
Request a demoFour native languages: the ones in which Switzerland writes its law
Native means trained on Swiss legal and financial data in that language, more than 15 million segments, and available in the platform's most protective mode.
GermanDeutsch · DE
Official language of the Confederation and the main language of the Swiss market. Swiss Standard German writes ‘ss’, never ‘ß’.
FrenchFrançais · FR
Official language of the Confederation. Federal terminology and that of French-speaking Switzerland, verifiable in context in CHnell.
ItalianItaliano · IT
Official language of the Confederation. Federal acts are equally authoritative in all three official languages, Italian included.
EnglishEnglish · EN
Working language for cross-border matters, international arbitration and financial documentation.
The 30 languages available on the platform
Corrext's target language selector has 32 entries for 30 distinct languages: Chinese and Portuguese each appear in two variants. The names below are the application's own English labels, each followed by the language's name for itself.
- Arabicالعربية
- BulgarianБългарски
- Chinese (Simplified)简体中文
- Chinese (Traditional)繁體中文
- Korean한국어
- DanishDansk
- SpanishEspañol
- EstonianEesti
- FinnishSuomi
- GreekΕλληνικά
- HungarianMagyar
- IndonesianBahasa Indonesia
- Japanese日本語
- LatvianLatviešu
- LithuanianLietuvių
- DutchNederlands
- Norwegian BokmålNorsk bokmål
- PolishPolski
- Portuguese (Brazil)Português (Brasil)
- Portuguese (Portugal)Português (Portugal)
- RomanianRomână
- RussianРусский
- SlovakSlovenčina
- SlovenianSlovenščina
- SwedishSvenska
- CzechČeština
- TurkishTürkçe
- UkrainianУкраїнська
Why translating in Switzerland is more than translating into German, French or Italian
Federal law is published in the three official languages on Fedlex, the Confederation's publication platform, and all three versions are equally authoritative. Translating a Swiss legal text is therefore not about inventing a wording. It means finding the one that already exists in the other official language. On top of that come writing conventions that immediately give away a translation done elsewhere.
Swiss Standard German
There is no ‘ß’: Swiss texts always write ‘ss’, ‘Strasse’ and not ‘Straße’.
Thousands separator
Everyday Swiss usage writes 15'000 with an apostrophe, not 15.000. Federal texts use a space (15 000), and their English translations a comma (15,000).
Trilingual legislation
Fedlex publishes federal law in German, French and Italian: the target version exists, so you quote it rather than translate it again.
The same act, three official abbreviations
Citing a Swiss act with the abbreviation of another language is the most visible mistake in a legal translation. Here are five of the most frequently cited acts, with their abbreviation in each of the three official languages. The first column gives the English title and abbreviation used in the English translations on Fedlex, which are for information only and have no legal force.
| Act | French | German | Italian |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code of Obligations (CO) | CO | OR | CO |
| Swiss Civil Code (CC) | CC | ZGB | CC |
| Banking Act (BankA) | BankA | BankG | LBCR |
| Federal Act on Private International Law (PILA) | PILA | IPRG | LDIP |
| Federal Act on Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy (DEBA) | DEBA | SchKG | LEF |
Official abbreviations as published on Fedlex
Accepted formats, and their limits
Corrext handles the office formats of everyday legal work: seven file types, from PDF to PowerPoint, in Text and document translation as well as in the Translation projects workflow.
.pdf, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt and .pptx, in File translation and at the File overview step of a project.
Up to 25 files per upload, added in one go or dragged into the drop zone.
50 MB per file. A larger document can be split, or handled in a translation project.
Up to 10,000 characters for text translation and 5,000 characters for rephrasing. A counter shows where you are in real time.
Upload your file(s)
The layout comes back the way it left
A 100-page contract with numbered articles, a table of covenants, a slide deck for a committee: the translation is delivered in the original format, structure included. You do not have to reformat it afterwards.
- The target document keeps the format and structure of the source document
- Tables, numbered lists and sections stay in place
- A scanned PDF first goes through PDF to Word to become an editable document again
- That is why the original format is always better than a PDF
Original format recommended
Where it exists, the application recommends uploading the original format, a .docx or an .xlsx rather than the PDF made from it: the text is read directly, without optical character recognition.
PDF, scans included
PDFs are accepted, including scans. The PDF to Word tab converts them into editable Word documents, before translation or for internal work. On this tab, the Highly sensitive content switch is greyed out: conversion does not translate.
What is analysed
In a project, each uploaded file shows its number of standard pages, its detected language and its detected legal category. You can change both before continuing.
Further reading
Upload your files, choose the engine, compare the alternatives.
Learn more Security and data sovereigntyWhere your data is stored, where it is processed, and by which engine.
Learn more Quality levelsFrom machine translation to certification: which level for which document.
Learn moreFrequently asked questions on languages and formats
Which languages are native in Corrext?
Four: German, French, Italian and English, in every pair. These are the languages in which LexMachina, the Swiss engine, was trained on more than 15 million legal and financial segments, and the only ones available in Highly sensitive content mode. The first three are the official languages of the Confederation, in which federal law is published.
How many files can I upload at once?
Up to 25 files per upload in File translation and in PDF to Word. In a translation project, you upload files at the File overview step, where each one shows its number of standard pages, its detected language and its detected legal category.
What is the maximum file size?
50 MB per file. For text pasted directly into the tool, the limit is 10,000 characters for text translation and 5,000 characters for rephrasing. For longer texts, upload a file or set up a translation project.
Can I upload a scanned PDF?
Yes. The .pdf format is accepted, scans included, and the PDF to Word tab converts a PDF into an editable Word document, before translation or for internal work. Where the original office file exists, however, the application recommends uploading it rather than its PDF version: the result is better and the layout more faithful.
Is the layout preserved?
Yes. The translation comes back in the original format: a .docx returns as a .docx, an .xlsx as an .xlsx, a .pptx as a .pptx, with the structure of the document. That is why the application advises uploading the original format rather than a PDF generated from it.
Are all languages available in Highly sensitive content mode?
No. Highly sensitive content mode, which requires storage and processing exclusively in Switzerland and prohibits any reuse of the content in translation memory, is available for German, French, Italian and English. The platform's other languages remain available with standard confidentiality: storage is Swiss in every case, but processing depends on the engine you choose.