I did not think Microsoft Office itself offered any translation feature but I found the following in the Office 2011 for Mac help.
You can use the Reference Tools to translate up to 400 words at a time.Office must be able to connect to the Internet to use Reference Tools. The first time you use Reference Tools you are asked to Click here to allow acceonline Reference Tools.
- In your document, select the text that you want to translate.
- On the View menu, click Reference Tools.
- Open the Translation panel.
- On the From pop-up menu, select the language that the text is currently in.
- On the To pop-up menu, select the language that you want the text to be translated to.
| Notes |
| - If you want to translate the entire document, in the box under the To pop-up menu, click Translate this document. The text is sent to the Microsoft Translator service over the Internet.
- To expand the window, drag the resize handle under the Translation window.
|
So this answers two questions, yes Office 2011 has such a feature, no you cannot do it offline. I suspect the way it works is that it send the selected text (up to 400 words at a time) to an Internet server not likely to be Google Translate and then replaces it with the result.
It should be noted that there are two different approaches to translation of text. Automatic as the above feature and as Google Translate, or semi-manual aka 'Computer Aided Translations' - CAT. The later would use a program and a database of previously translated phrases to suggest translations in a new document. We use a Windows program to do the later called Trados. As anyone who has used Google Translate would agree a fully automatic solution is prone to errors but give you the gist of what it meant. With the later being used by skilled translators who know both languages you can ensure a high level of accuracy and still speed things up considerably compared to a totally manual approach.
I found the following free fully automatic program on the Mac App Store - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/universal-translator/id420857081?mt=12 however it is merely a front-end to Google Translate.
I found this https://www.abbyy.com/dictionary_for_mac/ which is not free and seems limited to a single word at a time.
I found this http://www.tranexp.com/win/NeuroTran-eng-mac.htm which looks like it has a bit more potential.
This https://www.acetools.net/ seems to also need Internet access.
This http://www.promt.com/translation_software/mac/ specifically says it does off-line translation.
This https://www.cafetran.com/ looks very interesting. It seems to be the only CAT type tool for the Mac, all the others I listed are automatic translation tools.