Preserving file formats is not a novelty feature in 2026. It’s something you only notice when it breaks.
Yet Lara Translate (Yet Another AI Translator) by Translated, an Italian LSP, proudly announces that it can translate DOCX and PPTX files while preserving formatting. This is presented with a tinny trumpet fanfare as a key feature, even though it has been standard in most competent CAT tools for decades.
Back in the 1990s, DejaVu was the first Windows CAT tool many translators like me actually used in production. Somewhere, I must still have a DejaVu installation disk whose entire serial number is simply “11”, and it was on DV that I first worked in a segmented environment on Windows and got my formatted files back at the end. By the time Trados for Windows and other tools followed, the expectation was already set: you feed in a formatted source file, translate in a CAT tool, and get back a clean, formatted target file.
Fast-forward to today, and we see marketing copy that treats “we preserve formatting” as if it were a bold, AI‑powered breakthrough.
It isn’t. For anyone who has used mainstream CAT tools over the last 15–30 years, it sounds more like reinventing the wheel by loudly claiming your wheels are circular.
If there is something genuinely new under the hood, that would be the part worth explaining. Do they handle edge‑case layouts better? Integrate AI sensibly with TM and terminology? Solve real workflow problems? The email campaign doesn’t say.
Better to entrust your translations to an experienced, tech‑savvy human linguist, someone who knows which tools to use (including AI, when warranted) and when to rely on their own expertise.
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