Quick Translator

A tiny, fast, frictionless translator that lives in the Windows system tray. Select text anywhere, hit a global hotkey, and get an instant translation you can copy and paste back — without breaking your flow.

Built as a single native C# WinForms executable (~75 KB) that compiles against the in-box .NET Framework — no SDK, no runtime install, no API keys, and no AutoHotkey/PowerShell dependencies. It idles at ~40 MB RAM.

Why

I talk to people in other languages and study languages daily. Existing tools were too heavy or too slow — open a browser, paste, wait, copy back. The goal here was zero friction: press a shortcut → translate → copy → close, all from the keyboard, in under a second.

Features

• Global hotkey (default Ctrl+;, fully rebindable, keyboard-layout independent via low-level scan-code hook)
  • Text selected → translate it instantly
  • Nothing selected → open a type-to-translate box
  • Window already open → copy the result and close
• Multiple free translation engines with automatic fallback: Google, MyMemory, Lingva, LibreTranslate
• Offline OCR — drag a box anywhere on screen and translate text from images, using the built-in Windows OCR engine (WinRT)
• Text-to-speech via offline Windows SAPI voices — read the source or translation aloud
• Romanization of translations (pinyin, romaji, etc.)
• Alternative translations surfaced as clickable chips (gendered forms, synonyms)
• History with search, favorites, and JSON export/import
• Smart paste-on-close — types the translation back into the app you were using
• Per-mode default languages (one pair for selected text, another for typing)
• Accessibility: dark / light / follow-system themes and adjustable text size
• Runs on startup, single-instance (named-pipe IPC), custom dark-titlebar UI

Requirements

• Windows 10 / 11 (.NET Framework 4.x is built in)
• Internet connection for translation and TTS
• OCR uses the built-in Windows OCR engine; add extra languages via Settings → Time & language → Language → Optional features

Build

No SDK required — compiles with the in-box .NET Framework C# compiler:

build.cmd

This produces QuickTranslator.exe. The build references the per-namespace WinRT metadata for offline OCR and the GAC System.Speech assembly for TTS (see build.cmd).

Usage

Action	Result
Select text + hotkey	Translate selection
Hotkey with nothing selected	Open the type box
Hotkey while window is open	Copy result & close
Esc	Hide
Enter	Translate
Ctrl+Enter	Copy & close

The tray icon opens the main window (Translate / History / Settings tabs), where you can switch engines, rebind the hotkey, toggle behaviours, and pick default languages.

Technical notes

• Single-file QuickTranslator.cs, compiled to a winexe with /codepage:65001 so the UTF-8 UI glyphs compile correctly.
• Offline OCR is done by referencing the per-namespace WinRT .winmd files directly and blocking on IAsyncOperation via Completed + a ManualResetEventSlim, since the union Windows.winmd / System.Runtime.WindowsRuntime facade isn't available.
• TTS uses System.Speech (SAPI) for instant offline playback with selectable voices.
• Custom owner-drawn dark UI: rounded buttons, inputs, listboxes, and a marquee loader, with DWM dark-titlebar and rounded-window attributes.

License

MIT