How do I translate a form into another language?

Last updated: November 2, 2026

Add languages to a form, translate them with AI, and choose which ones candidates can pick — so each candidate completes the form in the language they're most comfortable with.

Before you start

A draft version of the form. Translations are read-only on a published version — see 📄 How do I edit a published form by creating a new draft version?
The language turned on for your organization. If it's missing from the list, use Manage organization languages at the bottom of it.

Steps

Add a language

Open the form's draft version and go to the Translations tab.
Click + Add language and pick the language.
A card for it appears in the list on the left, with what's left to translate — 42 to translate, for example.

Translate with AI

Click the language's card.
Its translations open beside your form's own language, field by field and grouped by page.
Click Translate all in the bar at the bottom.
AI fills in every empty translation for that language. Each field shows a spinner while it translates. Translations that already exist — including ones you wrote yourself — aren't touched.

[SCREENSHOT: the Translations tab with Spanish open beside English, and the bar at the bottom showing Translate all]

Review the result, especially compliance-heavy text: legal acknowledgments, tax terms and signature disclosures.
To redo only some fields, check them and click Translate.

Fix a translation by hand

Click into a translation and edit it.
It saves on its own, and two buttons appear under it.
Click Apply to 2 other languages (the number matches your form) to update the other languages to match, or Keep only Spanish to change just this one.

[SCREENSHOT: an edited translation with the Apply to other languages and Keep only buttons under it]

Choose which languages candidates see

Turn on Show to candidates on each language's card.
Candidates can now choose that language. One language always stays visible.

The Translate on button on the form builder's Canvas tab is on by default, so when you edit a field, every other language is retranslated for you. If you switch it to Translate off, fields you add or change afterwards stay untranslated until you click Translate all again.

What translations cover — and what they don't

Translations apply to the form on screen. A candidate who picks Spanish sees Spanish labels, help text, and options as they fill the form out.

The signed PDF is a separate artifact. A form carries one PDF template — the one you uploaded or mapped — and Onboarded fills that same template no matter which language the candidate used. So a form completed in Spanish produces a PDF whose printed labels are English, with the candidate's answers filled into it.

That's worth raising with your HR and compliance team before you roll out a second language. If a signed document has to be in the candidate's own language for your records or for a regulator, translating the form isn't enough — you need a separate form built on a PDF in that language, and a policy that assigns it based on the candidate's preferred language.

Verify

Every language you offer has Show to candidates turned on, and its card shows nothing left to translate. To see the form the way a candidate does, share a preview — see 📄 How do I share a preview of a form?.