Translate your labels and messages

This article explains how to translate, language by language, the buttons, messages and texts that the product writes on your pages. You will be able to change a word of the product and translate the name of your content types.

Before you start

• Labels are the texts the product writes for you. Examples are the messages of a form, the button that closes a window and the language suggestion banner. Texts that only a screen reader hears are labels. Your pages, on the other hand, are translated in the editor.
• On your pages, labels follow the page’s language. In the admin, they follow the language of each member’s account.
• The product ships in French and English. In another language, an untranslated label shows in its English fallback text.
• The Translations > UI Translations screen is reserved for the site’s administrators. Your translations only apply to your site and replace the product’s version.

Add an interface language

Add an interface language for each content language that the product does not ship, for example German.

1. In the admin menu, open Translations > UI Translations. The table lists your interface languages.
2. Click Add UI language. A panel opens on the side.
3. Choose the language from the list.
4. Click Add UI language. The language appears in the table.

Translate a language’s labels

1. In UI Translations, on the language’s row, click Edit translations. The language’s screen opens.
2. Click the tab you want. Each tab opens with the Untranslated only box checked and shows only the labels to translate.
3. On each row, read the Fallback text and write your translation in the box next to it.
4. Click Save. The message Changes saved. appears.

An empty box shows in gray the text that displays as long as it stays empty. To find a label, type a word in Search the fallback text… then click Filter. The search covers the fallback text only.

Your translations are saved in your site’s files, on the Staging. They go online with the site’s publication, and each site version keeps them with the rest.

Choose the right tab

Each tab is followed by two numbers, for example This site (4 / 10). The first counts the labels still to translate, the second gives the tab’s total.

In your site’s main language, whatever its region, the This site tab has nothing to translate. You wrote these labels in that language when creating your content types.

Write the plural forms

A sentence that depends on a number has one box per plural form of the language: Zero, One, Two, Few, Many and Other. French shows Zero, One and Other. Russian or Arabic show more.

Keep the inserted values

Some labels carry a placeholder, such as %s, %d or %1$s, that the site replaces with a value: a name, a number or a date. Your translation keeps the same placeholders, in the order your language requires.

A row whose placeholders do not match the fallback text is not saved. The message names it by its fallback text. Everything else is saved. The Zero and One boxes can do without the number, as in “No rows”.

Translate the language suggestion banner

The Language suggestion block writes its banner in the language it suggests. For a language other than French and English, it stays in English until you translate it. It shows, for example, “Switch to Deutsch”.

1. Open Edit translations for the language, for example German.
2. Open the tab The product’s block editor.
3. In Search the fallback text…, type preferred language.
4. Click Filter.
5. Translate the sentence View this page in your preferred language.
6. Search the same way for Switch to.
7. Translate Switch to %s keeping the %s, for example Zu %s wechseln.
8. Click Save.

Your forms’ messages are translated the same way in the The rest of the product tab, for example Your message has been sent.

Change a word of the product

You can replace a product label with the word from your trade, even in French. Your version changes nothing for other sites.

1. Open Edit translations for French, then the tab that carries the label.
2. Uncheck Untranslated only.
3. Search for the label.
4. Write your version.
5. Click Save.

Translate a content type’s name

A content type’s name and the address segment of its entries are translated in the type’s form. These translations are possible as soon as the site has two languages.

1. In the admin menu, open Content types, then the type’s form.
2. Expand Translations.
3. For each other language, fill in the Singular, the Plural, the URL slug and the Description.
4. Save the type.

The type’s name and the labels derived from it then follow the content’s language. The addresses of its entries take the translated segment, for example /projets/… in French and /en/projects/… in English.

See also

• Add a language
• Translate a page
• Offer visitors their language
• Create a content type