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  1. I have been using Claude 3 to translate academic articles. It does a stellar job, but can only deal with a few pages at a time. Can Claude 3.5 translate lengthier passages? Is there a way to upload a 200 page text and have Claude automatically break it into appropriately sized sections and translate them? When asked, Claude tells me he can do that, then stops after page 2 and says he cannot access the remainder, yet he can summarize it.

    1. Hey Roy, thank you for sharing your experience with Claude 3. You’ve raised an excellent question about translating longer texts.

      To clarify, Claude 3’s 200k token context window (approximately 175k words) includes both the input and output. This means that for translation tasks, roughly half of that capacity would be available for the source text, and half for the translated output.

      However, in practice, the output context is often shorter than the full 200k tokens. This explains why you’re experiencing halts after a couple of pages – Claude is likely reaching its output limit.

      For your 200-page document, I’d recommend the following approach:

      1. Count the total words in your text. If it exceeds 87.5k words, it’s unlikely Claude can translate it in one go due to context limitations.

      2. Break the text into smaller sections. The ideal size may vary, but aim for chunks that Claude can comfortably handle without cutting off.

      3. Develop a translation prompt that works well for your specific text. Test it on a few sections to refine the output quality.

      4. Once you’re satisfied with the prompt and chunk size, systematically translate each section.

      5. If you need to reference the entire document for context or summaries, you can include the full text in your prompt along with specific questions. This works well for queries but not for full translation of very long texts.

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