Tips for Wordpress translations

Automatic export and import

In a perfect world, you would export the content of your website into an easily editable document and then simply reupload the translated texts to Wordpress. There are multiple so-called plugins to achieve this, like Polylang, QtranslateX, MultilingualPress and WPML. WPML is the most commonly used one. Unfortunately, these plugins don’t always work as well as you would like them to. A dynamic website that consists of different modules can be hard, even impossible, to export and re-import automatically.

Manual export and import: Copy and paste

If you are unable to automatically export and import your website, you will need to manually copy all of the texts on your website into a document, and later paste the translations back into the right place. Textforum can help you with this. If you would like to do this yourself instead, you can make things easier by following the below steps when you start copy-pasting. These are our top tips:

Save yourself time and money by thoroughly preparing the process

We call the file we translate the “source text”. When translating websites, it’s easiest to paste the source text into a table. This lets you view the source text and the translation side by side.

Remember to:

Copy the source text from the admin dashboard in Wordpress, not from the actual website: some text may only be visible in Wordpress, like SEO copy or the page title listed in the browser tab.
Include links to all of the individual webpages, to make it easier for the translator to view your text in its context and see any pictures.
Past every bit of text or paragraph into its own cell.
Describe what kind of text it is (header, list, link, etc.). Usually, the descriptions Wordpress provides work just fine.

Formatting

Are any parts of the text hyperlinked, in italics or in bold? Let us know! Include all formatting in the source text, so we can replicate it in the translation. Underline hyperlinks, for example. This helps the translator underline the same words in the translation, which makes it easy for you to insert the translated link in the right place.

SEO

If you want your website to be serarch-optimised, include your SEO keywords and meta descriptions in the source text file. Feel free to reach out to us at Textforum: We can identify the best solution for SEO translation of your project

Translate the text of your site’s theme

To make sure all text strings that are part of your website’s Wordpress theme – like menus, error messages and buttons – get translated, you will need a file in the Portable Object (PO) format. For more information, head to https://wplang.org/translate-theme-plugin/.

Instructions for the translator

Do you have a style guide or glossary you would like your translator to stick to? The more information we can provide the translator with, the better the result will be. Detailed instructions also help us select the right translator for the job.

Last but not least: don’t hesitate to contact us at Textforum to discuss your project or any questions you have.

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