The working manual

Three things: the app installed, a Contextra account signed in (that is what activates your licence), and an AI provider key. Contextra runs on your own key by default, so you pay the provider directly and nothing you translate is metered by us. (Prefer not to manage a key? Managed AI credits — translation on Contextra's key, debited by tokens used — are live in your dashboard and arriving in the app through the beta channel first.)

You translate Word .docx files. The original is read on your machine and never modified — every export writes a new file.

Download and install Contextra, then start at step 1.

Still in Settings. Pick gemini-3.5-flash-lite under Default model — fast, strong on real documents, and a fraction of the cost of the flagship models. Move up later if a specific document argues for it.

Then, under Translation processing: Segments per batch 30, Parallel requests 4. A larger batch gives the model more of the document to stay consistent across; four at once keeps it quick without tripping rate limits.

The calendar button beside Date format is where you write date wording in your own words — always spell the month out in full; never abbreviate — sent with every translation, and settable per language.

Press ⌘⇧A. The app reads the whole document, works out the domain and — for legal and civil papers — the jurisdiction, then learns the terminology and builds a glossary, checking your term base first so wording you have already approved wins.

You will see it pass through Reading the document, Understanding the context, Learning the terminology, and finish with an Analyzed chip. What it produced shows up as the glossary header: how many terms, the domain, the jurisdiction.

It is optional. Skipping it costs you the glossary, the domain steer for memory matching, and — if the source is still Auto-Detect — any memory reuse at all, because the language pair is only resolved here.

Every filled row carries a badge saying where it came from. It is a statement about how much of your attention the row deserves, so it is worth knowing cold.

One key does the work. ↵ accepts the row, copies it into every identical segment further down, records the pair in your memory, and moves to the next row that still needs you. Held down, it walks the document.

⌘1–⌘9 take a match from the TM panel, which shows the source difference so you can see what changed. ⌘⇧C copies the source across for rows that should not be translated at all — reference numbers, names, codes.

Filter the grid when you want one kind of work: only untranslated, only rows you have not looked at, or only the ones needing attention (failed, flagged, or waiting on a term edit).

⌘⇧P opens Export view — not an impression of the output but the real bytes, with a toggle between the translation and the original. Check it there first.

⌘E writes the .docx: same layout, same tables, same bold and italics, new language. If segments are still untranslated the app says how many before writing, because those come out in the original wording.

⌘S is a different thing — it saves the project so you can close the app and pick the job up later. Trial exports are watermarked.