Translate Paper PDF

Overview

Use PDFMathTranslate-next as the supported front end to BabelDOC. Treat translation generation and fidelity acceptance as separate stages: a command can succeed while code, references, author metadata, or dense appendix layouts remain unsafe.

Workflow

1. Confirm the source boundary.
   • Work only with a user-provided, public, or otherwise authorized PDF.
   • Prefer born-digital PDFs. For scanned PDFs, pass --scanned and expect weaker layout fidelity.
   • Put large outputs, renders, and logs in the paper project or run directory, not in a planning repository.
2. Check the runtime:

python C:\Users\Administrator\.codex\skills\translate-paper-pdf\scripts\translate_paper_pdf.py doctor

3. If pdf2zh-next is missing, reuse an existing project environment or create an isolated one. Read references/engine-setup.md before installing or configuring a non-default engine.
4. Prepare a paper-specific glossary. Copy assets/glossary-template.csv, keep method/model/dataset names unchanged when appropriate, and validate every high-impact term. Disable automatic glossary extraction by default.
5. Choose a profile:
   • quick-read: generate mono/dual PDFs and structural checks for comprehension.
   • fidelity-review: also render source and translated pages and require manual page-level review. Read references/quality-contract.md before claiming fidelity.
6. Run the wrapper:

python C:\Users\Administrator\.codex\skills\translate-paper-pdf\scripts\translate_paper_pdf.py translate paper.pdf `
  --output-dir output\paper-zh `
  --profile fidelity-review `
  --glossary paper-glossary.csv

7. Inspect run-manifest.json and qa-report.md. For fidelity-review, visually inspect every rendered page or complete contact sheets, with focused checks on all priority pages.
8. Report both the usable artifacts and their limitations. Never describe manual_review_required, partial, or failed QA as fidelity-passed.

Re-run QA without retranslating when outputs already exist:

python ...\translate_paper_pdf.py qa paper.pdf `
  --translated output\paper.zh.mono.pdf `
  --translated output\paper.zh.dual.pdf `
  --output-dir output `
  --profile fidelity-review

Runtime Selection

The wrapper discovers the engine in this order:

1. --pdf2zh-cli <path>;
2. PDF2ZH_CLI environment variable;
3. pdf2zh / pdf2zh.exe on PATH.

The default engine is siliconflowfree, which sends paper text to an external translation service. Obtain user approval before sending private, unpublished, confidential, or restricted text to any external provider. Use a local or user-approved configured engine when external transfer is not allowed.

For non-default engines, pass only the engine selector and an existing user-managed config:

python ...\translate_paper_pdf.py translate paper.pdf --output-dir out `
  --engine openaicompatible --config-file C:\private\pdf2zh-config.toml

Do not read, print, copy, commit, or place API keys in command arguments, manifests, task traces, or the skill bundle.

Output Contract

Each completed run should contain:

• Chinese monolingual PDF when enabled;
• bilingual PDF when enabled;
• run-manifest.json with source/output hashes, versions, page counts, profile, and structural QA status;
• qa-report.md with high-risk pages, render locations, and manual review requirements;
• rendered pages under qa/rendered/ for fidelity-review when Poppler is available.

The wrapper preserves the source PDF and never overwrites it.

Hard Gates

• Fail if the source is missing, not a PDF, or the engine returns nonzero.
• Fail if the engine reports success but no expected PDF output is found.
• Mark structural QA failed when mono/dual page counts unexpectedly differ from the source.
• Keep manual_review_required until visual checks cover every page in fidelity-review.
• Treat translated code, altered citations/bibliography, corrupted author affiliations, clipped tables, covered text, missing formulas, and unreadable dense appendices as fidelity failures.
• Keep figure-internal English text when translating it safely would require reconstructing the figure; disclose this instead of inventing replacements.

Resources

• scripts/translate_paper_pdf.py: doctor, translation orchestration, existing-output QA, manifest generation, risk-page detection, rendering, and QA report.
• scripts/bootstrap_pdf2zh.py: install the tested pdf2zh-next version into an isolated virtual environment.
• references/engine-setup.md: engine selection, installation, configuration, and privacy boundaries.
• references/quality-contract.md: acceptance profiles, mandatory visual checks, and allowed claims.
• assets/glossary-template.csv: paper-level terminology template.