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Stop Translating Docs Manually! Automate Your Global Reach with Co-op Translator v0.8 Series

Is your team or open-source project drowning in the endless cycle of manually translating documentation? Every update to your source content triggers a wave of tedious, error-prone work across multiple languages, slowing down knowledge sharing and hindering your global impact.

This challenge became particularly clear within large-scale Microsoft educational projects like the “For Beginners” series, where manual translation simply couldn’t keep pace. A scalable, automated solution was needed to ensure valuable technical knowledge reaches learners and developers worldwide, breaking down language barriers that limit participation and slow innovation.

Co-op Translator, a Microsoft Azure open-source tool, was born from the need to address this. It’s designed as an easy-to-use, powerful solution to eliminate this translation friction, aiming to make knowledge universally accessible. By leveraging AI models (like Azure OpenAI and OpenAI) and Azure AI Vision via its CLI and powerful GitHub Actions, Co-op Translator empowers educators, students, developers, and researchers globally.

And now, we’re thrilled to highlight the v0.8 series (up to the current v0.8.6) – a transformative update designed to fully automate your entire documentation localization workflow. Featuring seamless GitHub Actions integration, an image translation engine delivering dramatically improved, state-of-the-art results (eliminating text distortion and scaling issues), and intelligent syncing capabilities, Co-op Translator is ready to revolutionize how you manage multilingual content.

Proven in the Real World: Powering Microsoft’s Global Learning Resources

Co-op Translator isn’t just a concept – it’s a tested engine driving automated localization for major Microsoft open-source educational initiatives, demonstrating its power in different scenarios:

• Large-Scale Content Translation & Language Support (via CLI): For massive repositories requiring initial bulk translation and broad language coverage, Co-op Translator’s CLI is used on:
  
  
  
  • ML-for-Beginners (72k★+)
  
  
  • AI-for-Beginners (37k★+)
  
  
  • AI-Agents-for-Beginners (17k★+)
  
  
  
  


• Continuous, Real-Time Synchronization (via GitHub Actions): For projects needing translations to stay perfectly in sync with ongoing source updates across multiple languages, Co-op Translator’s GitHub Actions integration ensures real-time accuracy we have been validating the actions process on projects like:
  
  
  
  • Phi Cookbook (Actively using Actions to keep 10+ languages automatically updated)
  
  
  
  

These resources reach hundreds of thousands globally. Co-op Translator automates the work of thousands of previously manual translation Pull Requests, ensuring content consistency and timely updates across languages

Co-op translator now has over 17,000 downloads from PyPI.

The key takeaway? Whether you need large-batch translations or continuous synchronization, Co-op Translator provides a proven, automated solution. If these complex, high-traffic projects can fully automate their translation workflow, yours can too! 

What’s New & Exciting in the v0.8?

This v0.8 release delivers a suite of powerful enhancements designed for real-world localization workflows:

1. Seamless GitHub Actions Integration: Full Automation!

Transform localization from a chore into a smooth, automated CI/CD step:

• Effortless Trigger: Simply push updates to your source files (Markdown or images) in the main branch.


• Intelligent Processing: GitHub Actions automatically invokes Co-op Translator, which smartly detects only the changed content.


• Automatic Updates: Get translations updated using your configured AI models.


• PR Creation: A Pull Request is automatically generated with the fresh translations, ready for your review and merge.

This is the ultimate “set it and forget it” solution for keeping multilingual content synchronized.

Get started with automation using the guide that fits your setup:

• 
  

  Public Setup Guide (using GITHUB_TOKEN)

  
  : Recommended for most repositories.


• Organization Setup Guide (using GitHub App): For environments with specific permission restrictions or policies.

See Co-op Translator in action! Automating translation updates via GitHub Actions.

2. Improved Image Translation Engine (By @timothycdc)

Translating text embedded within diagrams, UIs, and other images was quite a novel task– there were no suitable image inpainting algorithms available for this, so older versions of Co-op translator used a simple image warp with the Pillow library to replace text bounding boxes with translated versions. The v0.8 series introduces a completely revamped engine:

• Improved Text Stability: Addressed issues causing text distortion (such as unnatural stretching or squashing) in translated images, leading to more visually stable and accurately proportioned text rendering.


• Robust RTL Language Support: Fixed critical rendering issues for Right-to-Left (RTL) languages (e.g., Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, Urdu). They now display correctly and are positioned naturally within the image layout, resolving previous problems with broken text.


• Optimized Performance: up to 40% faster rendering and improved background handling, plus an optional “fast mode” that pushes the improvement to 80%.

Right-to-Left (RTL) language support

3. Smarter Translation Management & Syncing (By @skytin1004)

Work more efficiently with intelligent file handling:

• Precise Change Detection: Uses file metadata (size hash) to ensure only files with actual content changes are re-translated, saving significant time and API costs.


• Flawless Synchronization: Automatically mirrors your source directory structure, correctly handling file renames and deletions in the translated folders.


• Enhanced Quality: Continuous refinements to Markdown parsing and AI prompts deliver more accurate and consistently formatted translations.

Smart change detection: Only genuinely modified files get re-translated.

4. Improved Usability & Resilience

• Intuitive CLI: A polished command-line interface for when manual control is needed.


• Robust Operation: Better handling of potential network or AI service interruptions.

Get Started: Automate Your Translations in Minutes!

Ready to reclaim your time and effortlessly reach a global audience?

1. Install or Upgrade (v0.8.6 is the latest):pip install –upgrade co-op-translator


2. Explore the Project:
   
   
   
   • GitHub Repository: Azure/co-op-translator ( ⭐ Star us if you like it!)
   
   
   
   

Join the Movement: Let’s Automate Open Source Localization!

Co-op Translator is more than just a tool; it’s a community-driven Azure open-source project dedicated to breaking down language barriers. We extend a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to the v0.8 series!

Help us make manual documentation translation obsolete:

• Report Issues or Suggest Features

Stop the manual grind. Start automating your global reach with Co-op Translator today!