Edyt vs. DeepL and Google Translate: Translate Selected Text Without Leaving Your App

If you work in two languages, you know the loop. A message arrives in one language, you need to answer in the other, and the translator lives in a browser tab. Copy, switch, paste, read, copy the result, switch back, paste, fix the line breaks. Twenty times a day.

DeepL and Google Translate are both good at the translating part. The loop is the problem. Edyt (a Mac and Windows app that turns a text selection plus a keyboard shortcut into a finished result, with a web editor alongside it) is built for the other part: translating selected text where it already is, understanding it, and answering, without the trip.

Here is where Edyt does better, and where it doesn't.

1. The translation shows up where the text is

Select the text in whatever app you are in, press Ctrl+Shift+T, pick the target language, and the translation appears next to your selection. One click pastes it back in place of the original, or you copy it and move on.

No tab, no second window, no pasting into a box. The whole thing happens in your email, your chat, your document, your form. And since most people translate between the same two languages all day, Edyt keeps your recent languages at the top of the list, so switching between them is one click.

To be fair, DeepL's desktop app has a similar trick: press copy twice and a small window opens with the translation, and it can insert the result back. If translating is all you ever do, that is a reasonable way to work. The difference is what comes after, which is most of this post. See Translate in action

2. Formatting survives the trip

Paste a bulleted list into a web translator and you often get your bullets back as one block of text. Headings flatten, line breaks move, and you spend a minute putting the structure back.

Edyt translates the text as it is. Headings stay headings, lists stay lists, line breaks stay where they were, and code stays code. Names, brand names and terms that have no good equivalent are kept as they are, or the original is added in parentheses the first time, instead of being forced into an awkward substitute.

For a two-line message this does not matter. For a status update with five bullets, it is the difference between done and almost done.

3. You can say what you want in plain words

Translation is rarely a single right answer. The tone is too formal. A term should stay in English. The result is twice as long as the original.

DeepL handles some of this with a formal and informal switch for certain languages, and with glossaries you set up in advance. Google Translate shows alternatives for short phrases.

In Edyt you type what you want under the result: "more casual", "keep the product names in English", "shorter". The translation is redone with that in mind, and you can keep going until it reads right. It is a conversation about the text, not a settings menu.

4. When the translation still makes no sense, Explain does

This is the part a translator cannot do, and it is the reason people who work in a second language end up living in Edyt.

A translation gives you the words. It does not tell you that the sentence is an idiom, that the tone is colder than it looks, that the term is legal jargon, or that the "yes" is actually a polite no. You read the translated line and you are still not sure what the person meant.

Select the text and press Ctrl+Shift+X instead. Explain breaks it down: what it says, what it means, what the odd term is, how it comes across. You choose the language the explanation comes back in, so a Spanish message can be explained in Persian, or a German contract clause in English. Not sure yet? Ask a follow-up in the panel: "Is this formal?", "What does this phrase usually imply?", "Is he annoyed?"

Translate and Explain together cover the two things you actually need from foreign text: the words, and the meaning. DeepL and Google only do the first.

5. Then you answer, in the same place

The real reason the browser loop costs so much is that reading the message is step one. You still have to write a reply, make it sound right, and send it in their language.

With a translator tab, each of those is another tool. With Edyt they are the same toolbar: Explain to understand it, Rewrite (Ctrl+Shift+C) to answer in your voice, Proofread (Ctrl+Shift+H) to check it, Translate (Ctrl+Shift+T) to send it in theirs. Same selection, same shortcuts, same place. The clip at the top is that loop in full: read the Spanish message in English, type the reply in English, send it in Spanish.

Side by side

When DeepL or Google Translate is the better pick

For a whole document, paste the text into Edyt Web and translate it there, then work on it with the same actions. What Edyt does not take is a file. If you need a PDF or Word document translated with its layout kept, DeepL and Google both do that and Edyt does not.

Edyt also lives on your computer. On your phone, pointing a camera at a menu, or talking to someone in another language, Google Translate is the tool.

For a single word you want to look up, the browser is fine and fast. Edyt sends the text to an AI model, so a result takes a moment, and it counts against your daily allowance on the free plan. The numbers live on the pricing page.

And if you only translate and never need to understand the subtext or write back, DeepL's desktop app does the shortcut part well on its own.

The bottom line

DeepL and Google Translate are translators. Edyt is the tool for working in a second language inside the apps you already use: translate the selection, ask what it means in your own language, adjust it in your own words, and answer in the same place.

The honest test is a normal working day. Next time a message arrives in your other language, select it and press Ctrl+Shift+X to see what it means, or Ctrl+Shift+T to read it word for word, instead of opening the tab. Then write the reply and run Rewrite on it. If the loop was costing you more than you thought, you will notice by lunch.