Partly. As of July 2026, Microsoft 365 Copilot can translate the text inside a document, but it does not reliably return a rebuilt file with your original formatting intact. Copilot typically inserts translated text below the original or renders it in the chat pane, and complex elements — tables in particular — can come back as raw HTML rather than a clean layout. For a formatted, translated copy of the source file, you need a document-first translation pipeline layered on top of the model.
Bluente is an AI-powered document translation platform used by 30,000+ professionals to translate files in 120+ languages while preserving original formatting. This article explains what Copilot does and does not do with documents, where the formatting breaks, and how to get a translated file that looks exactly like the original.
What Does Microsoft Copilot Actually Do With a Document?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a productivity assistant built on large language models and wired into Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Copilot Chat. When you ask it to translate, it reads the text of the document and generates a translated version. In Word, you can select a passage and have Copilot translate it, with the translated text inserted below the original content. In PowerPoint, Copilot can create a new copy of a deck with the text translated while leaving the original untouched.
That is genuinely useful for understanding a foreign-language file or drafting a quick internal version. What Copilot is not is a layout engine that reconstructs a document. It translates the words; it does not guarantee that the returned file mirrors the source's tables, columns, footnotes, and page structure.
Does Copilot Keep Tables and Complex Formatting Intact?
Not reliably. Microsoft's own support and community threads note that Copilot handles straightforward body text well, but struggles with structured elements — translating tables can surface raw HTML in the output instead of a clean, formatted table. Because the translated text is often inserted below the original rather than swapped in place, you frequently end up with a bilingual, doubled-up document that still needs manual cleanup.
For a memo, that is a minor annoyance. For a 40-page contract, a financial statement, or a regulatory filing, it is a real problem: the table that held a payment schedule or a set of covenants is exactly the part that cannot afford to break.
Why Doesn't Copilot Preserve Formatting on Its Own?
Because translating a file while keeping its formatting is a three-stage job — extract the text with its position and styling, translate it, then reflow the translated text back into the original layout. Copilot is excellent at the middle stage. The first and third stages, the parts that actually keep your tables aligned and your headings in place, are a document-rendering problem, not a language problem.
There is also a file-format limit. Copilot works best inside supported Office formats; for many other file types, Microsoft's guidance is to save as PDF or DOCX first. And translating a document directly through Copilot Chat is restricted in some configurations, pushing you back into per-app, select-and-translate workflows that leave the original structure to chance.
What Does This Mean for Legal, Finance, and Regulated Work?
It means Copilot is a drafting aid, not a document deliverable engine. In regulated work, the output has to be a usable file — a contract you will sign, a filing a regulator will read, a board deck you will present. A mistranslated clause or a collapsed table is not a cosmetic glitch; it can make the document unfileable or, worse, wrong in a way nobody notices until it matters.
Professionals also have to weigh confidentiality and terminology control. Copilot's enterprise data commitments are strong, but it offers no custom glossary to lock a regulated term — "agreement," "shareholder," "principal" — to a single translation across a long document. Terminology drift across a 60-page contract is a known failure mode of general-purpose translation.
How Is Bluente Different From Translating With Copilot?
Bluente is built as a document-first platform, not a chat assistant. You upload a PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, or scanned image, and you get back the same file in a new language — tables, charts, footnotes, and legal numbering intact. The layout-aware engine runs the extract-translate-reflow pipeline automatically, so there is no text inserted below the original, no HTML tables to clean up, and no manual rebuild.
The practical differences for professional work: formatting stays intact across 27+ file types, including scanned PDFs and images via built-in OCR; translations complete in minutes, with most documents finishing in under two minutes; terminology stays consistent through a custom glossary; and every file is handled under enterprise-grade security — SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and ISO 27001 compliance, with zero data retention and automatic deletion within 24 hours. Your documents are never used to train any AI model. Bluente delivers up to 95% accuracy on legal terminology, trained on 500,000+ contract terms.
When Is Copilot Enough, and When Do You Need a Document Platform?
Copilot is a good fit when you need the gist or a fast internal draft, and the exact layout of the output does not matter. It lives inside the tools your team already uses, and for quick comprehension that is convenient.
You need a document translation platform the moment the output has to be a faithful file — signed, filed, presented, or reviewed by someone outside your team. That is the line between an assistant that translates text and a platform that translates documents.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can Microsoft Copilot translate a PDF and keep the layout? Not reliably. Copilot can translate the text of a PDF, but it does not return a formatted PDF that mirrors the original layout, and many non-Office formats have to be converted first. For a translated PDF that keeps tables, columns, and numbering intact, use a document-first platform like Bluente.
Q: Why does Copilot show HTML code when translating tables? Because Copilot translates text without a dedicated layout engine to rebuild structured elements, complex tables can render as raw HTML in the output rather than a clean table. Bluente preserves table structure natively during translation, so nothing has to be reformatted afterward.
Q: Does Copilot translate the whole document or just selected text? In Word it typically translates selected passages and inserts the result below the original; in PowerPoint it can create a translated copy of a deck. Direct document translation via Copilot Chat is limited in some setups. Bluente translates the entire file in place and returns a single, formatted document.
Q: Is Microsoft Copilot safe for confidential documents? Copilot offers enterprise data protections, but always confirm your organization's configuration and data-handling terms before uploading sensitive files. Bluente is SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and ISO 27001 compliant, retains zero data, deletes files within 24 hours, and never uses documents to train AI models.
Q: What file types can Bluente translate? Bluente handles 27+ formats — PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, CSV, and scanned images (PNG, JPG, TIFF) — across 120+ languages, preserving the original formatting in every case.
Start translating documents for free. Bluente preserves your formatting across 120+ languages in under 2 minutes. Try BluTranslate free — no credit card required.