QuickTrans Popup
The QuickTrans Popup is a small always-on-top window that shows machine translations of the currently-selected text from every enabled provider, all at once. Select text anywhere on your computer, press the QuickTrans hotkey, and the popup appears with translations streaming in as each provider responds.
It's a single-purpose surface – just translations, no chat – and it stays on top of every other window until you press 1–9 / Enter / click to pick a result, or Esc to dismiss.
Opening QuickTrans
Global, from any application
Ctrl+Alt+Q (⌘⌥Q on macOS)
Auto-copies the current selection; popup appears with translations
In-app, from a Workbench grid cell
Ctrl+Alt+Q
Same chord – Ctrl+Alt+Q is registered both as a system-wide global hotkey and as an in-app QShortcut, so it works wherever you are
Editor right-click → ⚡ QuickTrans
Right-click menu
Uses the selected text in the cell (or the full cell text if no selection)
After selecting a translation from the global path (Ctrl+Alt+Q from another app), the popup hides itself, returns focus to the source application, and pastes the result over your selection. When invoked in-app, selecting a translation inserts it at the cursor position in the focused grid cell.
The popup header
A row of three controls runs along the top of the popup:
⚡ Supervertaler QuickTrans – title
🔍 Run in SuperLookup – closes the popup and opens Workbench's SuperLookup tab with the same query pre-filled and the search auto-fired. Useful when you've translated a phrase via QuickTrans and then think "actually, I want to look this up in my TMs / termbases / web resources too" – one click instead of dismissing the popup and pasting the query again
⚙ Settings – opens Workbench Settings → ⚡ QuickTrans so you can enable / disable providers and pick LLM models
Translation results
Results arrive as they complete from each provider and are displayed in a numbered list. The first result to arrive is automatically selected, so for the typical "fast provider → press Enter" flow you don't need to wait for the slow ones.
Press 1–9
Insert the numbered translation immediately
Arrow keys + Enter
Navigate and select
Click
Insert the translation
Esc
Dismiss the popup without inserting
Each translation row shows the provider name on the left and the translated text on the right.
Supported providers
QuickTrans queries up to eleven providers in parallel. Each one is independently enabled / disabled in Workbench Settings → ⚡ QuickTrans.
Machine translation engines (each row needs an API key for that service, except MyMemory):
Google Translate
Yes
DeepL
Yes
Microsoft Translator
Yes
Amazon Translate
Yes
ModernMT
Yes
MyMemory
No (free, rate-limited)
LLM providers (each row needs an API key for that service; reuses the keys configured in Settings → AI Settings):
Claude
Pick the model in Settings → ⚡ QuickTrans (e.g. claude-haiku-4-5 vs claude-sonnet-4-6)
OpenAI
Pick the model (e.g. gpt-5.4-mini vs gpt-5.5)
Gemini
Pick the model
Ollama
Local-only; uses the active Ollama model
Custom
One configurable OpenAI-compatible endpoint (URL + model)
The LLM providers are disabled by default – tick them in Settings → ⚡ QuickTrans if you want LLM-based "translation as suggestion" alongside the MT engines. (Ticking all eleven makes for a slow popup; most users keep three or four MT engines plus one LLM.)
Language pair
QuickTrans uses the active project's source and target language. There's no per-query language override in the popup itself – set the language pair at the project level and QuickTrans inherits it.
If no project is open, QuickTrans falls back to English → Dutch (the default for unconfigured installs).
Configuring providers
Open Workbench → Settings → ⚡ QuickTrans (or click the ⚙ cog in the popup header) to enable / disable individual providers and pick LLM models. The settings live in general_settings.json under the mt_quick_lookup key and persist across restarts.
Tick a provider, save, then trigger Ctrl+Alt+Q again – the popup picks up the new provider list the next time it opens.
Tips
Ctrl+Alt+Q is the fastest way to translate – select text anywhere, press the shortcut, results appear instantly. The synthetic Ctrl+C happens internally, so you don't need to copy first.
Use the 🔍 Run in SuperLookup hand-off for terminology questions. QuickTrans is great for "how does this phrase translate?", SuperLookup is great for "have I translated this term before? what does it mean? is it in a termbase?".
The popup lives on top of every other window, so you can summon it from a browser, a PDF reader, your CAT tool, or anywhere – it overlays whatever's foreground.
Different from Chat. QuickTrans gives you N parallel translations from N providers; the Chat tab in Workbench's right panel is a conversational AI assistant. Use QuickTrans when you want options, Chat when you want a conversation.
Customising the hotkey
The QuickTrans chord can be rebound in Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts. The action is called QuickTrans (instant translation popup), default Ctrl+Alt+Q. The same chord registers as both an in-app QShortcut and an OS-level global hotkey, so changing it once changes both.
Related pages
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