krzyszz / vbagoogle.apis.translate_wrapper

Simple and short library allowing to use Google Cloud Translation API to translate a text - out of the box.

Google.Apis.Translate Wrapper

What's this?

This is a tiny .NET library, which employs Google Cloud Translation for translating a text from one language to another.

The project depends on the Google.Apis, mainly on the Google.Apis.Translate.v3beta1, and, in fact, is just a minimalistic wrapper around these, making it simple to use the APIs for a text translation from .NET or any environment supporting COM.

The translator can be used from VBA (e.g. in Word, or Excel). The project was initially developed to translate some Word documents. The source of the macro demonstrating usage of the translator in Microsoft Word is included.

Building And Installation

Obtaining the key.json file from Google

To use the translation api you should register the project in the Cloud console.

• Open console
• Create a project
• Enable Cloud Translation API for the project
• Create a service account for the project
• Open the service accounts page and choose to generate a key in actions of the account you have created.
• Place the downloaded file to the project tree, near the Translator.cs, as key.json.

The key.json file bounds the usage of the project to your own service account. Notice that after some limit, usage of the Cloud Translation API is paid. So be careful when publishing your own key.json. All the risks will be on you.

The compilation process simply copies the key.json file to the output folder. So you can replace the key with another one even when the library is already compiled.

Compiling And Installing

Fetch the source, open the solution on VS and compile. I developed the project on VS 2017, though most other versions should be capable to compile the code as well.

Notice that if you are going to use the library via COM, you have to run the Visual Studio as an administrator. Otherwise the VS won't register the library after it's compiled.

Is it free to use the Google Cloud Translation?

At the moment of this writing, Google allows to use the API for free to translate up to 500 000 characters monthly. It should be very enough for personal use. For the characters above, you will have to pay. See Pricing page for details.