Paste a formula, get it back in your language
Paste an Excel formula in any of 17 spreadsheet languages and get it back in yours, with the argument separator swapped and the reason you were getting #NAME? spelled out underneath it.
Excel speaks English inside the file, and only that
Excel keeps every formula in English inside the file. When you open a workbook, it swaps the names it shows you into whatever language that copy of Excel runs in. That is why a colleague in Frankfurt can open your sheet and see WENN where you wrote IF, and nothing breaks.
The translation only happens on open. It does not happen when you type, when you paste from a web page or a blog post, when you read a formula out of a PDF, or when a script writes the formula into a range. Those paths all go straight into the parser of the Excel you are sitting in front of, which only understands its own language. That parser is why you get #NAME?.
Most people meet this for the first time when a colleague abroad sends a workbook, or when they paste a formula from a tutorial written in another language. The usual reaction is to rebuild the formula by hand, argument by argument. With a long nested formula that is an afternoon of work, and the error message never tells you which half of it is wrong.
The comma is not the separator everywhere
Excel separates function arguments with a comma in English, and with a semicolon in most European builds. The choice is not tied to the language of the menus. It follows the decimal separator in your Windows regional settings, so a German Windows configured for English formats still uses a comma. This is why pasting a German formula into an English Windows machine can fail even though the function names match: the names are right and the separator is not.
Change it in File > Options > Advanced, un-tick Use system separators and type your own, or fix the decimal separator in Windows Region settings. Either works. Separators apply only between arguments. Inside a curly-brace array constant the comma always means a new column and the semicolon always means a new row, in every language, and this tool leaves those alone.
Not every language localizes anything
Microsoft localizes function names for a fixed set of languages and no more. Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Greek and most other non-Latin script languages keep the English names, and there is nothing to translate. Copying an English formula into a Japanese Excel works perfectly, which is the opposite of what most people expect.
The other trap is the newer dynamic-array functions. XLOOKUP, FILTER, SORT, SORTBY, UNIQUE, SEQUENCE and RANDARRAY only exist from Excel 2021 and Microsoft 365. In a build that predates them the English name returns #NAME? no matter which language you are in, and no translation will help.
Do not convert the file
A saved workbook carries no need for conversion. Send the .xlsx and the other person sees the formula in their own language with the separator their build expects. The original author's names and separators are in the file, Excel reads them, and it never asks anything of the recipient.
Tools that convert an entire spreadsheet file are solving a problem you do not have, and the conversions they produce are the ones that introduce new breakage. Convert the formula text, not the file.
Wrong interface language gives #NAME? on the function itself. Wrong separator gives #VALUE!, #NAME? or a truncated formula, and it breaks on the first comma, not the first letter.
Dynamic-array names and a handful of 2019 additions return #NAME? in every language on a build that predates them. Nothing about the translation is wrong; the function simply is not there.
A named range or a table column that no longer exists is reported as #NAME?, not #REF!. So is a misspelled sheet name inside quotes.
Microsoft retired the official Excel Functions Translator add-in. If a formula you were sent works on the sender's machine and not yours, build version is the next thing to compare.
Localized function names
Every function that has a different name in at least one of the 17 languages, with the name your language expects. Search by English name, by the name in any language, or by category.
| English | Name in language | Category |
|---|---|---|
| No data yet. | ||
Localized error codes
Error values are translated too, which is why a screenshot from a German colleague shows #WERT! where you were looking for #VALUE!. Where a language has no distinct spelling the English code is used.
| English | Code in language | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| No data yet. | ||
Questions people actually ask
Why does my formula show #NAME? when the same formula works for a colleague?
Two reasons account for nearly all of it. The first is language: their Excel runs in a different language and expects different function names, and the formula you are sending was typed rather than saved, so Excel never got the chance to translate it. The second is the argument separator, which follows your regional decimal separator rather than your menu language. This tool reports both, and shows which of the two it found.
Do I have to convert a workbook someone sent me in another language?
No. Excel stores formulas in English in the file and swaps the display names when the file is opened, so a workbook built in German opens in English with IF where the author wrote WENN and nothing breaks. You only need this tool when you are moving formula text, not a file.
Which languages does Microsoft localize Excel function names for?
Seventeen, and the list is fixed: German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese in both Brazilian and European variants, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian and Czech. Greek, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Traditional Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese are not localized and keep the English names.
My colleague's formula uses semicolons and mine uses commas. Which one is right?
Both, on different machines. Excel takes the argument separator from the decimal separator in your regional settings, not from the display language, so you can run a German interface with comma separators. The default for each language is pre-filled above; override it if your machine disagrees.
Can an AI chatbot translate my spreadsheet formulas for me?
It will handle SUM and IF and it will quietly get the rest wrong. The failures are not random: it translates a function that was never localized, so you get a name that exists in no build of Excel. It rewrites semicolons inside array constants into commas and turns one row into two columns. It renames a sheet reference that happens to look like a function. It rewrites your named ranges. None of those raise an error at generation time, and all of them fail on the one line you did not check. A lookup table over the actual published names does not guess.
How do I fix #NAME? that is not about language at all?
Three causes are common. A function that arrived in Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365 on an older build will always return #NAME? in every language. A typo in the name, or a name from a different Excel version, behaves the same way. And a named range or table column that no longer exists is reported as #NAME? rather than #REF!. This tool tells you which of the three it can see and leaves the ones it cannot to you.
Is my formula uploaded anywhere?
No. Translation and diagnosis run in the page. There is no server, no account and no analytics call on your formula.
How complete is the function table?
490 functions across 17 languages, taken from the published localization tables rather than from memory. Where a function is identical in your language it is not listed, because there is nothing to translate. A name the table does not know is reported as unknown instead of being guessed at, so paste the exact text Excel gives you.
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