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Easydict for Windows

Easy to look up words or translate text

A Windows port of Easydict

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Table of Contents

Introduction

This is a Windows port of Easydict, originally a macOS translation dictionary app. The project was developed using Vibe Coding - AI-assisted programming to migrate the Swift/SwiftUI codebase to .NET + WinUI 3.

Easydict supports Copilot+ PC enhanced local AI translation: on supported Copilot+ PCs with a 40+ TOPS NPU, translations run on-device via Phi Silica for fast, private output. Foundry Local is supported on regular Windows PCs, with OpenVINO NLLB-200 as an offline fallback — standard translation services remain fully available on every Windows device.

While the feature set is not yet complete compared to the macOS version, this port fills the gap for Windows users who want a convenient translation tool with global hotkey support and multiple translation services.

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Screenshots

Overview

Main Window with Mini Window (Quick Translate)

Main Window All Windows Settings
Main Window All Windows Settings
Full translation interface Main + Mini + Fixed windows with hotkey settings Service configuration

Light & Dark Mode

Light & Dark Mode — Mini Window (Quick Translate)

Grammar Correction Dictionary Mode Long Document Translation
Grammar Correction Dictionary Mode Long Document Translation
AI-powered grammar correction Word definitions, phonetics, and examples PDF/Text/Markdown translation with progress
OCR Screenshot Translate Mouse Selection Translate
OCR Screenshot Translate Mouse Selection Translate
Capture screen region → OCR → translate Select text in any app → click to translate

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Features

  • Copilot+ PC Enhanced Local AI Translation - Windows Local AI runs on-device with NPU acceleration via Phi Silica on supported Copilot+ PCs (40+ TOPS), Foundry Local on regular Windows PCs, or OpenVINO NLLB-200 as an offline fallback. Auto mode picks the best available provider; standard cloud translation services remain fully available everywhere.

  • OCR Screenshot Translate - Snipaste-style screen capture: press Ctrl+Alt+S to capture a screen region, auto-detect windows or drag to select, then OCR the text and translate. Uses Windows OCR API with configurable recognition language. Also supports silent OCR (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S) that copies recognized text to clipboard without translating.

  • Mouse Selection Translate - Select text in any app (drag, double-click, or triple-click) and click the floating pop button to translate instantly in Mini Window

  • Grammar Correction Mode - AI-powered grammar correction that highlights errors and provides corrected text with explanations

  • Long Document Translation - Translate PDF, plain text, and Markdown documents with ML-based layout detection, formula protection, parallel processing, bilingual output, and translation cache

  • Dictionary Mode - Word definitions, phonetics, and example sentences powered by Google Dict. Linguee is currently unavailable because its upstream sample API no longer resolves.

  • MDX Dictionary - Import MDict (.mdx) dictionary files for offline word lookups with rich HTML rendering

  • Global Hotkeys

    • Ctrl+Alt+T - Show/hide main window
    • Ctrl+Alt+D - Translate clipboard content
    • Ctrl+Alt+M - Show mini window (copies selection and translates when available)
    • Ctrl+Alt+F - Show fixed window
    • Ctrl+Alt+S - OCR screenshot translate
    • Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S - Silent OCR (copy recognized text to clipboard)
    • Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M - Toggle mini window visibility
    • Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F - Toggle fixed window visibility

  • Multiple Window Modes

    • Main Window - Full translation interface
    • Mini Window - Compact floating window
    • Fixed Window - Persistent translation window

  • LLM Streaming Translation - Real-time display of translation results

  • System Tray - Minimize to tray, run in background

  • Clipboard Monitoring - Auto-translate copied text

  • Shell Context Menu - Right-click any file or desktop background → "OCR Translate" to instantly capture and translate text on screen

  • Dark/Light Theme - Follows system theme

  • TTS (Text-to-Speech) - Play source and translated text using Windows Speech Synthesis

  • Multi-language UI - Localized interface in 15 languages including English, Chinese (Simplified/Traditional), Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian

  • 40+ Languages - Customizable language selection in Settings — choose which languages appear in source/target pickers from 40+ options spanning East Asian, European, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian languages

  • HTTP Proxy Support - Configure proxy server

  • High DPI Support - Per-Monitor V2 DPI awareness

  • Multiple Translation Services (19 available services; Linguee currently unavailable)

    • Google Translate (free, no API key required)
    • Google Dict (rich dictionary: phonetics, definitions, examples)
    • Bing Translate (free, no API key required)
    • DeepL (supports Free/Pro API, Traditional Chinese supported)
    • Youdao (Web + OpenAPI)
    • OpenAI (GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini, etc.)
    • Gemini (Google AI, including Gemini 2.5 models)
    • DeepSeek
    • Groq (fast LLM inference)
    • Zhipu AI
    • GitHub Models (free)
    • Doubao (ByteDance translation-specialized model)
    • Volcano Engine (火山翻译, ByteDance)
    • Caiyun (彩云小译, Traditional Chinese supported)
    • NiuTrans (小牛翻译, 450+ languages, Traditional Chinese supported)
    • Linguee Dictionary (currently unavailable; upstream sample API is offline and disabled by default)
    • Ollama (local LLM, default: llama3.2)
    • Windows Local AI (Phi Silica on Copilot+ PCs, OpenVINO fallback)
    • BuiltIn AI (free, powered by Groq)
    • Custom OpenAI-compatible services

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Installation

System Requirements

  • Windows 10 version 2004 (build 19041) or later
  • x64 or ARM64 processor

Install via winget

winget install xiaocang.EasydictforWindows

Download

Download from the Releases page.

Portable Version (Recommended)

File: easydict_win32-vX.Y.Z-x64.zip

  • No installation required - extract and run
  • No administrator privileges needed
  • Self-contained (.NET runtime included)
  • First run may trigger Windows SmartScreen warning - click "More info" → "Run anyway"
# Extract and run
Expand-Archive easydict_win32-v1.0.0-x64.zip -DestinationPath Easydict
.\Easydict\Easydict.WinUI.exe

Verify Download (Optional)

Each release includes SHA256 checksums for verification.

# Linux/macOS/WSL
sha256sum -c checksums-x64.sha256 --ignore-missing

# PowerShell
$expected = (Get-Content checksums-x64.sha256 | Select-String "easydict_win32").ToString().Split()[0]
$actual = (Get-FileHash easydict_win32-v1.0.0-x64.zip -Algorithm SHA256).Hash.ToLower()
if ($expected -eq $actual) { "OK" } else { "FAILED" }

Build from Source

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/xiaocang/easydict_win32.git
cd easydict_win32/dotnet

# Build
dotnet build src/Easydict.WinUI/Easydict.WinUI.csproj -c Release

# Run
dotnet run --project src/Easydict.WinUI/Easydict.WinUI.csproj

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Tech Stack

  • .NET - Runtime framework
  • WinUI 3 (Windows App SDK) - Modern Windows UI framework
  • C# - Programming language
  • xUnit + FluentAssertions - Unit testing

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Translation Service Integration Tests

Service Protocol Status Notes
Google Translate REST ✅ Free, no API key
Bing Translate REST ✅ Free, no API key
Youdao REST ✅ Web + OpenAPI
OpenAI OpenAI API ✅
DeepSeek OpenAI API ✅
Gemini Gemini API ✅ Custom SSE streaming
Zhipu AI OpenAI API ✅
Volcano Engine REST ✅ HMAC-SHA256 signing
Groq OpenAI API — OpenAI-compatible, missing API key
GitHub Models OpenAI API — OpenAI-compatible, missing API key
Doubao Custom SSE — Missing API key
DeepL REST — Missing API key
Caiyun REST — Missing API key
NiuTrans REST ✅
Linguee REST — Unavailable: upstream sample API domain no longer resolves; integration tests are skipped by default
Google Dict REST ✅
Ollama OpenAI API — Requires local Ollama setup
Windows Local AI Local runtime ✅ TranslationManager routing tested; real inference requires Phi Silica, Foundry Local, or OpenVINO model
BuiltIn AI OpenAI API — Embedded key
Custom OpenAI OpenAI API — OpenAI-compatible, user-defined endpoint

Services marked OpenAI API extend BaseOpenAIService and share the same OpenAI-compatible implementation, so untested ones are expected to work similarly.

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TODO

High Priority

  • Doubao - ByteDance LLM service ✅ Implemented
  • Caiyun - 彩云小译 ✅ Implemented
  • NiuTrans - 小牛翻译 (450+ languages) ✅ Implemented
  • Linguee Dictionary - Dictionary with context examples ✅ Implemented, currently unavailable
  • TTS (Text-to-Speech) - Windows Speech Synthesis API ✅ Implemented
  • OCR Screenshot Translation - Snipaste-style screen capture with Windows OCR API ✅ Implemented

Medium Priority

  • More Translation Services

    • Volcano Engine (火山翻译, ByteDance) ✅ Implemented

  • AI Tools

    • Text Polishing
    • Text Summarization

  • More Hotkeys

    • Polish and replace
    • Translate and replace

Low Priority

  • Dictionary Mode - Word definitions, pronunciation ✅ Implemented
  • Smart Query - Auto-select translation mode based on text type
  • Multi-language UI - UI localization (15 languages) ✅ Implemented
  • Auto Update - Check and install updates

Distribution

  • Windows Store - Published to Microsoft Store
  • winget - Published to Windows Package Manager ✅

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Comparison with macOS Version

Feature macOS Windows
Translation Services 25+ 20
OCR Screenshot Translation Yes Yes
TTS Yes Yes
Selection Translation Yes Yes
Grammar Correction No Yes
Long Document Translation No Yes
Dictionary Mode Yes Yes
Window Types 3 3
Global Hotkeys 10+ 8
LLM Streaming Yes Yes
Traditional Chinese Yes Yes

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Comparison with pdf2zh

pdf2zh (PDFMathTranslate) is a popular open-source PDF translation tool focused on scientific papers. The table below compares the long document translation capabilities of the two.

Feature pdf2zh Easydict Win32
Layout Detection DocLayout-YOLO ONNX (DocLayout-YOLO) / Vision LLM / Heuristic / Auto
Formula Protection LaTeX preservation Three-tier detection, multi-font glyph rendering, subscript/superscript handling
LLM Backends OpenAI, Ollama, Azure OpenAI, etc. OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, Groq, Zhipu, GitHub Models, Doubao, Ollama, Custom OpenAI-compatible
Document Context Pass No Yes — glossary + summary + preservation hints extracted before block translation for terminology consistency
Translation Cache No Yes — SQLite cache keyed by source hash + service + language pair
Parallel Translation Limited Configurable concurrency with retry + quality feedback
OCR Fallback (Scanned PDF) No Yes — Windows OCR for image-only pages
CJK Font Handling Basic Built-in CJK font resolver + TrueType CMAP parser + automatic font download
Page Range Selection Yes Yes (1-3,5,7-10 or all)
UI CLI + minimal GUI Native WinUI 3 app with progress, preview, cancellation
Integration Standalone Part of full translation dictionary app (OCR, selection, hotkeys, streaming, etc.)
Platform Cross-platform (Python) Windows 10/11 (native .NET 8)

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License

GPL-3.0 - For learning and communication purposes only. License and copyright notice must be included when using source code.

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Acknowledgements

This project was developed using Vibe Coding, with AI-assisted programming by Claude (Anthropic).

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Easy to look up words or translate text. Windows port of tisfeng/Easydict.

xiaocang.github.io/easydict_win32/

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