Translate PDF to Maori
Translate a PDF into te reo Maori, an official language of New Zealand, with the macrons that carry meaning kept in place and your page layout untouched. Files up to 1 GB.
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Max. file size 1 GB
Fifteen letters, and one mark that does the heavy lifting
The alphabet is small: five vowels, eight single consonants, and two digraphs that each stand for one sound, ng and wh. There are no consonant clusters and every syllable ends in a vowel, which is why borrowed English words come out considerably longer once they have been reshaped to fit. That structure makes the language look easy to typeset. It is not, because of a single diacritic.
The macron, the horizontal bar over a vowel, marks vowel length, and vowel length is not decorative in te reo Maori. It distinguishes words. It also carries grammar: for several nouns describing people, the difference between the singular and the plural is nothing but a macron. A document that has lost its macrons has not lost its accents, it has lost information, and in places it now says something different from what was written. The five long vowels sit in a Unicode block beyond the Western European range, which is exactly why they go missing: a font assembled for English and the major European languages contains every other letter on the page and none of these five.
There is a second, quieter failure. A long vowel can be stored either as a single character that already carries the bar, or as a plain vowel followed by a separate combining mark. On screen the two are usually indistinguishable. In a search box, an index, a sort order or a database key they are not equal at all, so a document that mixes both encodings looks correct and behaves badly. If you are producing a PDF that will be indexed or searched, it is worth confirming that the long vowels are stored consistently.
Not everyone writes the macron. Some writers, particularly in the Waikato tradition, mark a long vowel by doubling the letter instead. That convention is deliberate and correct within its own tradition, so a document using it is not misspelled. What causes trouble is a file that switches between the two systems, or one where a doubled vowel has been produced accidentally by a tool that could not render the macron.
What a dropped macron actually costs
These are ordinary words, not obscure ones, and they appear in exactly the kind of document that gets translated. In each pair the two entries differ by nothing but vowel length.
tangata and tāngata
One person, or several people. The plural is formed by lengthening the vowel and nothing else. Strip the macron out of a census table, a consent form or a set of meeting minutes and the counts silently change.
wahine and wāhine
A woman, or women. The same pattern, and just as common in health material, policy documents and anything reporting on a group of people.
matua and mātua
A parent, or parents. School communications, enrolment forms and family services material use this word constantly, and the singular and plural look identical once the macron is gone.
keke and kēkē
Cake, or armpit. This pair is the one usually quoted to explain the point to people learning the language, for the obvious reason. It is not a plural at all, just two unrelated words separated by a bar.
Te reo Maori translation pricing
Run a page through the trial and check the macrons before you commit to a plan.
7-Day Trial
MOST POPULARthen $14.99/month after trial ends
- 7-day full access trial
- Trial limit: 10 pages or 3,000 words
- $0.005/word AI translation
- 120+ languages
- PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, IDML, TXT, JPG, PNG, CSV, JSON
- Team access & custom glossaries
- Email support
Monthly
POPULARRegular price $29.99, now 50% off
- 100 pages or 30,000 words per month
- $0.005/word AI translation
- 120+ languages
- Unlimited file storage
- PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, IDML, TXT, JPG, PNG, CSV, JSON
- Team access & custom glossaries
- Priority email support
Annual
SAVE 25%~$11.25/month, save 25% vs monthly
- 100 pages or 30,000 words per month
- $0.005/word AI translation
- 120+ languages
- Unlimited file storage
- PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, IDML, TXT, JPG, PNG, CSV, JSON
- Team access & custom glossaries
- Priority email support
Turning your PDF into te reo Maori
Register an account
Sign up with your email to open the dashboard.
Upload the file
Drag the PDF over or browse for it. Paid plans accept up to 1 GB, which is enough for a full report or a settlement document set.
Set Maori as the target language
Choose the source language, then select Maori, meaning te reo Maori of Aotearoa New Zealand. Cook Islands Maori is a related but separate language and needs a different treatment.
Check the macrons before you publish
Open the finished file and confirm the long vowels are present and consistently encoded. This is the single most important check on any te reo document.
Where the demand comes from in Aotearoa New Zealand
Te reo Maori has been an official language of New Zealand since 1987, with a commission charged with promoting it and standards for its use in public life. Around 185,000 people report being able to hold a conversation in it, and the number of documents produced bilingually is far larger than that figure suggests, because government agencies, councils, schools and companies all publish in both languages as a matter of policy. The recurring categories are:
- Government and council publications issued bilingually: strategies, annual reports, public consultations, service information and signage text
- Treaty claim material and settlement documentation, including deeds published in both languages and nineteenth-century sources written in Maori that have to be read today
- Iwi and hapu governance material: trust deeds, annual reports to members, register communications and resource management submissions
- Curriculum resources, readers and assessment material for Maori-medium schooling, where the language is the medium rather than the subject
- Health information, patient material and public campaigns produced for Maori communities
- Museum and exhibition text, heritage interpretation and place name material
- Corporate and organisational material: values statements, karakia, welcome text and bilingual branding
One point of caution specific to this language. The Treaty of Waitangi exists in an English text and a Maori text whose differences have been argued over in tribunals and courts for generations. Historical and legal documents in this pair are not a translation problem to be solved automatically. Use AI output to read and to draft, and involve people with the standing to make the calls where the wording carries legal or cultural weight.
Before a te reo file goes out
Confirm the macrons rendered
Look for the horizontal bars. If the document has none, either the text genuinely contains no long vowels, which is unlikely in anything more than a sentence, or a font substitution has removed them.
Check that they are encoded one way
Copy a long vowel out of the PDF and paste it into a search box against another occurrence. If the two do not match, the file is mixing single characters with combining marks and will not index or sort correctly.
Leave names and places alone
Personal names, iwi names and place names should carry the spelling their owners use, macrons included, and should not be regularised by a translation pass. Official place names have been progressively corrected over the past two decades, so an older source may show an outdated form.
Allow room in the layout
Because no syllable ends in a consonant and borrowed words are respelled to fit that pattern, te reo text generally runs longer than the English beside it. Bilingual layouts with two equal columns almost always need the Maori column to breathe.
Get a speaker to read it
For anything published under an organisation's name, a reviewer with standing in the language should sign off the text. This is a professional expectation in New Zealand rather than an optional extra.
Te reo Maori translation questions
Will the macrons survive in the translated PDF?
That is the check to do first on any te reo document. The long vowels are outside the character range that fonts built for English and Western European languages cover, so a font substitution during a PDF rebuild is exactly how they disappear. Open the finished file and look for the bars. If a document of any length shows none, something removed them.
Does a missing macron really change the meaning?
Yes, and often in ways that matter in ordinary documents. For several words describing people the macron is the only thing separating the singular from the plural, so a form or a report loses count information rather than just looking untidy. Other pairs are unrelated words entirely. It is not comparable to dropping an accent in French.
What about writers who double the vowel instead of using a macron?
That convention is used deliberately in some traditions, notably in the Waikato area, and text written that way is correct within it. The problem is inconsistency: a document that uses both systems, or one where doubled vowels appeared because a tool could not produce macrons, is confusing. Decide which convention the document follows and apply it throughout.
Is this te reo Maori of New Zealand or Cook Islands Maori?
The Maori option refers to te reo Maori of Aotearoa New Zealand. Cook Islands Maori is a separate, related language of the same Polynesian branch with its own orthography and vocabulary, and material for the Cook Islands should not be produced from a New Zealand Maori translation. If your audience is in Rarotonga rather than in New Zealand, say so at the outset.
How much longer will the Maori text be than the English?
Usually noticeably longer. Every syllable ends in a vowel and there are no consonant clusters, so borrowed words are respelled with extra vowels and multi-syllable forms are the norm. Bilingual page designs with two matched columns generally need to give the te reo column more width or more depth, and a rebuilt PDF re-fits the text rather than letting it overrun.
Can I use this for Treaty or Waitangi Tribunal material?
For reading and preparing, yes. For the documents themselves, no. The Maori and English texts of the Treaty differ in ways that have been argued over in tribunals and courts for generations, and nineteenth-century Maori writing has conventions of its own. That work belongs with translators and scholars who carry the standing to make those judgements.
Should personal and place names be translated?
No. Names of people, iwi, hapu and places keep the spelling their holders use, macrons included, and should be carried across unchanged. Bear in mind that official place name spellings in New Zealand have been progressively corrected over recent decades, so an older source document may contain a form that is no longer current.
What are the file limits and the price?
Monthly and Annual plans take files up to 1 GB or 5,000 pages. The Monthly plan is $14.99 for 100 pages or 30,000 words, the Annual plan is $135 a year, about $11.25 a month, and AI translation is $0.005 per word. The $2 7-day trial covers 10 pages or 3,000 words, enough to confirm the macrons render in your document.
Translate your document into te reo Maori
Upload a PDF and download a Maori version with the layout, images and tables of the original kept in place and the long vowels carried through. Files up to 1 GB.
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