File formats supported in Smartcat

Understand the wide variety of file formats supported by Smartcat for translation, from Microsoft Office and Open Office formats to hypertext, desktop publishing, and localization files. Learn about the upload process, unsupported formats, and security measures for an efficient and secure translation workflow.

Smartcat supports a wide variety of bilingual and monolingual files. It detects each file’s format automatically.

Simply drag and drop your files or select them when creating a new translation task or project.

If your file format isn’t supported the error message will be displayed and the file won’t get uploaded.

Supported file formats

Microsoft Office

  • DOC / DOCX

  • XLS / XLSX / XLSM

  • PPT / PPTX / PPS / PPSX / POT / POTX

📌 Microsoft Office formats are proprietary and complex. Some post-processing may be required on translated documents.

Open Office

  • ODT

  • ODP

Text and rich text

  • TXT

  • RTF

Data and spreadsheets

  • CSV

Hypertext

  • HTML / HTM

  • PHP

Bilingual interchange formats

  • XLIFF (XLF) 1.2 and 2.0

  • SDLXLIFF

  • MQXLIFF

  • XLIFF files from Articulate Rise 360

  • XLIFF files from Articulate Storyline

  • XLIFF files from Easygenerator

  • PO / POT

  • TTX

Desktop publishing

  • PDF

  • IDML (Adobe InDesign)

  • INX

  • MIF (FrameMaker)

📌 PDF files are processed using OCR. See the Images (OCR) section for supported input formats.

Technical writing

  • DITA XML

  • DITAMAP

  • HELP+MANUAL XML

Localization

  • XML

  • TTML

  • Android XML

  • RESX

  • LOCJSON

  • JSON

  • TJSON

  • YML / YAML

  • INC

  • INX

  • STRINGS (Apple)

  • STRINGSDICT (Apple)

  • XCSTRINGS (Apple Xcode string catalog)

  • PROPERTIES (Java)

Learning content

  • Articulate Rise SCORM course (ZIP)

  • Articulate Storyline course (ZIP)

  • Articulate Storyline native file (STORY)

Video

  • MP4

  • MPEG / MPG / M2V

  • AVI

  • MOV / QT

  • MKV

  • M4V

  • FLV

  • 3GP / 3G2

  • OGV

  • TS

  • WMV

  • VOB

Audio

  • MP3

  • MP2 / M2A

  • M4A

  • AAC

  • OGG

  • FLAC

  • WMA

Subtitle file formats

  • SRT

  • VTT

Images (powered by OCR)

  • JPG/JPEG

  • TIF/TIFF

  • BMP

  • PNG

  • GIF

  • DJVU/DJV

  • DCX

  • PCX

  • JP2

  • JPC

  • JFIF

  • JB2

  • AI (Adobe Illustrator)

  • SDLPPX / SDLRPX

  • WSXZ

  • ZIP

📌 ZIP packages are used for IDML, DITA, Articulate Rise SCORM, Articulate Storyline courses, and other packaged content. Smartcat detects the package type automatically.

Unsupported file formats

  • FM (FrameMaker binary)

To help you avoid security risks, certain files, such as executable files and scripts, are also restricted from being uploaded.

Smartcat blocks files with the following extensions from being uploaded:

ade, adp, apk, app, appx, appxbundle, asp, aspx, asx, bas, bat, cab, cer, chm, cmd, cnt, com, cpl, crt, csh, der, diagcab, dll, dmg, exe, fxp, gadget, grp, hlp, hpj, hta, htc, inf, ins, iso, isp, its, jar, jnlp, js, jse, ksh, lib, lnk, mad, maf, mag, mam, maq, mar, mas, mat, mau, mav, maw, mcf, mda, mdb, mde, mdt, mdw, mdz, msc, msh, msh1, msh1xml, msh2, msh2xml, mshxml, msi, msix, msixbundle, msp, mst, msu, nsh, ops, osd, pcd, pif, pl, plg, prf, prg, printerexport, ps1, ps1xml, ps2, ps2xml, psc1, psc2, psd1, psdm1, pst, py, pyc, pyo, pyw, pyz, pyzw, reg, scf, scr, sct, sh, shb, shs, sys, theme, tmp, url, vb, vbe, vbp, vbs, vhd, vhdx, vsmacros, vsw, vxd, webpnp, website, ws, wsc, wsf, wsh, xbap, xll, xnk

⚠️ Note: js appears in the blocked extensions list above. If you need to translate JavaScript localization files, export them as JSON or another supported localization format.