---
title: "Customizing How Machine Translations Work"
description: "Whether you want to keep branded words from translating or you'd like to translate certain words into something else each time you can do this using some nifty settings."
url: "https://support.helpdocs.io/article/mqsgyu80ap-customizing-how-machine-translations-work"
category: "Machine Translations"
updated_at: "2025-10-08T13:31:05Z"
---

# Customizing How Machine Translations Work

Machine translations are a super quick and easy way to get your docs into a different language (or languages ✨) without having to get a third-party involved.

Sometimes you want to control what gets translated and what doesn't. Or maybe you want to translate a certain word into something that fits your brand better in that language.

Good news! We have a tool for each of these! Here's how it works.

Your translation customizations will be translated in order of length with the longest word being translated first and the shortest word being translated last

### Excluding Words from Being Machine Translated

[Embedded iframe](https://player.vimeo.com/video/814641168)

1. Make sure you aren't currently in [your default language](/article/NjjPixGLuy-translating-your-docs)
2. Head to **Settings** > **Language** > **Machine Translation**
3. Inside the **Translation** section enter the word you *don't* want to be translated in the **Original Word** column
4. Hit **Save Changes**

Now your chosen word will be excluded from machine translations and it'll be left alone by the bots 🤖

### Translating Certain Words Into Specific Translations

[Embedded iframe](https://player.vimeo.com/video/814647954)

1. Make sure you aren't currently in [your default language](/article/NjjPixGLuy-translating-your-docs)
2. Head to **Settings** > **Language** > **Machine Translation**
3. In the table inside the **Translation** section
   
   1. Enter the word you want to translate in the **Original Word** column
   2. Enter the word you want it to be translated into inside the **Translation** column
4. Hit **Save Changes**

Machine translation customizations are per-language so you can customize the translation in each of your additional languages. Perfect for brands with different brands names in different languages 💖