Translution Light

Translution Light is one of those applications that feels as though it just has to be introduced into a future version of Outlook, offering a convenient and intuitive instant translation service for emails.

Once you've downloaded the software from its website and gone through the somewhat laborious activation procedure, you're free to translate to and from English, German, French, Italian and Spanish, at the click of a mouse. The application adds itself demurely to your Outlook menu, sitting between 'Action' and 'Help'.

Suppose you wanted to use Outlook to send an email in English to colleagues in France, Germany, Spain or Italy. Before clicking 'Send' you can choose either 'Set language for recipient' from the 'Translution' menu to permanently assign a language, or 'Translate' if the email is a one-off. Not only will Translution automatically translate your message into your chosen language, it will also translate back into English when the recipient responds. What's more, unlike many popular translation tools out there, we found the responses were readable and actually made sense. Now that's what we call clever. Despite the Light version being Freeware, we experienced no significant problems and the program worked without any fuss. The convenient, yet simple interface ideally slots effortlessly into the Outlook menu and is easily accessible.

Translution is available on two product levels. There is a free restricted version in the form of Translution Light, designed for Outlook users - it won't work on web pages or documents. There is also a Pro version, which allows you to translate web pages and Word documents, as well as Outlook email messages. Translution Pro is offered on a free trial basis for 30 days as a no-risk option and businesses with colleagues, contacts or suppliers in France, Spain, Germany or Italy may benefit from the addition of translatable Word documents and webpages that come with this version.