Whether you are working with a translation service or are going to translate your content internally, you will need to prepare your content before you send it to the translators. Ideally, you should prepare for translation at the start of your project, so that you can consider using translatable variables from the start. But they can be set up and applied retrospectively if needed.
Tip
If you have content that you want exclude from the translation, see Exclude Content from Translation.
The preparation steps are:
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Activate Languages - This makes the languages available to use.
You may also need to add any missing languages or dialects to Paligo, see Create Additional Languages.
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Add the languages to your publications and topics, see Add a Language to a Publication or Topic.
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Upload image variants for different languages, see Translate Images. (Optional)
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Set up translatable variables, see Translate Variables. (Optional)
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Consider if you need to provide your translators with information about Translate Filters. (Optional)
Note
Steps 3 to 5 inclusive are optional. You only need to complete these steps if your content contains images that need different images in other languages, variables and filters, respectively.
If you have content that you do not want to be translated, you can set it to be translation disabled.
To exclude content you do not want to be translated:
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Select the topic or component in the Content Manager to open it in the Editor.
Alternatively, you can Create a Topic and edit that.
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Select the content in the topic.
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Select the
paraelement in Element Structure Menu and choose Disable element translation. -
Select Save.
If you translate your content, you may need different language versions of your images. For example, you might have a screenshot of a user interface that needs to be different, depending on whether it is in the English, French, or German version of your documentation. To do this in Paligo, all you have to do is give the images a language suffix in their filename and then upload them. Wherever the source image is used, Paligo will swap it out automatically for the appropriate translated version when you publish.
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Send the image files to your translators - This has to be done outside of Paligo, using whatever approach works best for your organization, for example sharing folders in the cloud, sending the images as zip files.
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When the translators return the image files import them into Paligo. For the the importing, you can either:
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Import each image individually as a variant of the original image. You can do this in the image properties settings in Paligo, see Add a Language Variant Image for a Single Image
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Bulk import many files at once. Paligo will give the files a language code as part of the filename and will automatically use them in place of the original images in translations, see Batch Import of Language Variant Images.
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When you have language variant images set up for your content, you may later find that you need to:
If you need to have small number of language variant images in your content, you can add the language variants individually.
For example, you could have user guides in English, Swedish, and German, but most of the images are suitable for all three. But in one topic, there is an image of the interface, and that contains text that has to be shown in the appropriate language. For this, you could edit the topic and upload the Swedish and German variants of the image into the topic.
Note
If you have many images that need to have language variants, then it will be quicker to bulk upload them, see Batch Import of Language Variant Images..
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Either:
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Find the image in the Media library, select its options menu ( ... ) and then select Edit Image.
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Right-click on the image in a topic and then select Edit Properties.
Paligo displays the Image details.
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In the Language variant field, select the language for the variant image you are going to add. For example, if your original image is the English language version and you are going to add a French image variant, select French.
When you choose a language, Paligo displays a preview of the image that is currently used as the language variant. If there is no image, a red question mark is shown.
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If the language variant of the image is already in your media library, select Replace with Existing, then browse to the image and select it.
If you are going to upload the language variant image, select Upload Image and then use the dialog to upload the image file.
The image that you select or upload should have the same filename as the source language image, but with a suffix. The suffix has to be a hyphen followed by the HTML language code. For example, if battery.jpg is the source language image file, use battery-fr.jpg as the French variant of the image. For information on the HTML language codes, see https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_language_codes.asp.
Note
Do not change the Description for each language. The description is the alt text for the image in its source language. If you need to have translatable versions of the description, add the alt text as an alt element, see Alt Text for Images.
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Repeat this process for each language variant that you want to add.
Paligo provides a thumbnail of each image. Select a thumbnail to view it at a larger size.
Once you have multiple language variants Paligo will automatically select the right language variant when you publish to different languages.
If you need to add lots of variant images for outputs in different languages, it's better to do a batch import (also known as a bulk import). With this approach, you can upload the images all at once, rather than having to go through the time-consuming process of adding each one individually.
For the bulk import, it is important that:
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The original source language images are already in your media library
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The files you upload have the same name as the original source images, but with a language suffix.
The language suffix is a hyphen with the two-character code for the language. For example, if you have a source language image file called "payment_details.png" then the variants for Swedish, French, and German would be "payment_details-sv.png", "payment_details-fr.png", and "payment_details-de.png" respectively. For information on the HTML language codes, see https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_language_codes.asp.
Note
Do not upload the source language images and the language variant images at the same time. The source language images must be in the media library before you upload the language variants.
If you do upload the source language image and the language variants all at the same time, Paligo will recognize the variant images as separate images. They will not be language variants of the source image.
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Upload your default language images, if they are not already uploaded (see Upload Images to the Media Library). These are the "source language" images.
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Make sure the language variant images have the hyphen and language code as a filename suffix.
For a list of the correct language suffixes see: ISO 639-1 Language Codes (use the ones in the first code column).
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In the Media section of the Content Manager, either:
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Select the options menu ( ... ) for the folder that contains the source language version of the images, then select Upload Images
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Select the options menu ( ... ) for the Media folder and then select Upload Images.
Paligo displays the Upload Images dialog.
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Drag and drop the language variant images files into the box in the top section. Alternatively, select Add Files and add the language variant files there.
Paligo detects that the files you are about to upload have the hyphen and language suffix and so are language variants. This can only happen if the new files have the same name as the source language versions, but with the hyphen and language suffix.
The Upload images dialog shows each variant image file that you are uploading, and below that, there is a checkbox with the name of the matching source language image.
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To upload an image as a language variants of an existing image, check the box for the source language image.
If you leave the checkboxes clear, the files will upload as regular images and will not be language variant images. This is for situations where you may have used a hyphen and language suffix for other purposes, such as a product code. In that case, the suffix is nothing to do with a language variant, it is just a coincidence, and you want the files to keep their names and be regular images, not language variants.
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Use the Update existing in any folder box to tell Paligo to replace images only in the selected folder or in all folders. to replace images that are in the Media folder and also any of the subfolders in the Media section.
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Check the Update existing in any folder box to replace matching images in all folders in the Media section.
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Clear the Update existing in any folder box to replace matching images only in the folder you selected in step 3.
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Select Upload.
Paligo will upload the images and set them as variants of the source image automatically.
Note
The media library does not show language variant images, and this is by design to avoid confusion.
If you can see images with language suffixes in your media library, these images have been uploaded but are not set to be variants. This can happen if you upload image files with language suffixes, but there is no source image with a matching name. For example, if you upload "battery-sv.jpg" and there is no "battery.jpg" file in the media library, then "battery-sv.jpg" cannot be matched to a source language image. Instead, it is treated as a regular source language image.
We recommend that you remove or rename any source language images that have a language suffix.
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Check that the variants are in place. To do this, select the options menu ( ... ) for the source language image in the media library, and then select Edit Image. On the Image Details dialog, select the preview all variants link. The Image Details dialog should show a preview of the source language image and every language variant image.
Over time, you may need to update your variant language images, for example, if a user interface has changed. To update one or more variant images:
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Either:
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Find the source language image in the Media library, select its options menu ( ... ) and then select Edit Image.
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Right-click on the source language image in a topic and then select Edit Properties.
Paligo displays the Image details.
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Select the Preview all variants link to view all of the variant images.
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Select the cog icon in the top corner of the language variant image that you want to update.
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Select Replace variant.
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Use the Upload image dialog to upload the image variant file that will replace the current image variant. The image that you select must have the same file name as the existing variant, including the same language suffix.
Paligo replaces the existing image variant file with the new image variant file that you uploaded.
To remove a language variant image:
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Either:
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Find the source language image in the Media library, select its options menu ( ... ) and then select Edit Image.
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Right-click on the source language image in a topic and then select Edit Properties.
Paligo displays the Image details.
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Select the Preview all variants link to view all of the variant images.
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Select the cog icon in the top corner of the language variant image that you want to delete.
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Select Remove variant.
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Select Confirm to delete the language variant image.
Paligo's translation packages include any filtered content (profiling), so that it can be translated too. If your translators are unfamiliar with the concept of filtered content, it may confuse them. So if you use filters, we recommend that you let your translators know, and explain the concept to them.
For example, let's say you have three versions of a paragraph in a topic, and two of those will be excluded depending on the filters. When the translator receives that topic, it will contain all three paragraphs, which could look strange, especially if the paragraphs are very similar. So it's a good idea to explain that this is intentional and that they should translate them all.
To learn more about filtering, see Filtering / Profiling.
If you want to use variables in your content and you need them to be translated, use text (translatable) variables. These are the only type of variable that can be exported for translation. For example, let's say you translate your content and you use variables to swap out the term "administrator" for "operator" in different user guides. As you are having the content translated, you will need to use text (translatable) variables for "administrator" and "operator".
Tip
Don't worry if you have already used regular text variables, as you can convert them into text (translatable) variables (see Convert Variables).
To create translatable text variables that you can insert into your topics:
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Scroll down to Variable sets in Content Manager.
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Select the arrow in front of the Variable sets to expand it.
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Select Create variable set.
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Name the variable set.
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Select Add variable.
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Name the variable.
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Select Text (translatable) as the variable type.
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Select the checkmark in the bottom right corner to confirm the selection.
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Use the Add variant button to create the variant columns for your content.
Each variant column represents a different collection of values. For example, you might have separate variant columns for each product, "Acme 100 User Guide", "Acme 200 User Guide", "Acme 300 User Guide" and so on.
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Repeat steps 5 and 9 to add all of the different translatable variants that you need.
You now have a row for each variable and a column for each variant.
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Select a cell to display the Translatable text dialog.
It shows the languages that are already in place. By default, this is just the source language.
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Select OK.
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Use the Add language field to add the languages you need for translation.
You can add any language that is available in your Paligo instance, see Language Management.
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Enter the value for the variable in the source language and then leave the other language boxes empty.
Your translation service will add the translations when you send the variable set to them. If you are doing the translations internal, your own translators can add the translation in these language boxes. Select OK when you are finished.
When you have created translatable text variables, you can add them to your topics.
Note
If you are translating your content internally, your translators can add the translations directly in the variable set too.
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Select the topic or component in the Content Manager to open it in the Editor.
Alternatively, you can Create a Topic and edit that.
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Position the cursor where you want to insert the translatable variable.
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Select the Insert tab in the Toolbar.
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Select Variable.
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Select the variable set that contains your translatable variables.
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Select the specific translatable variable you want to use.
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Select OK to confirm.
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Select Save.
Note
When you publish your content, you will choose which values will be inserted into the variables, see Choose Variable Sets for Publishing.
Tip
With the translatable variables added to your content, the next step is to get your content reviewed and approved, see Author Instructions for Review Assignments.
When the content has been approved in the source language, it can be sent for translation, see Export a Translation Package.
The translation package does not include the translatable variables, so you need to send those separately (see Export a Variable Set for Translation.
When your content is ready for translation, you can send the translation package to the translation service. The package does not include translatable variables, so you need to send those separately.
Note
Only translatable variables can be translated. If you have other types of variables, you will need to convert them into translatable text variables if you want to have them in different languages. To learn how to convert them, see Convert Variables.
To export a variable set:
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In the Content Manager, expand Variable sets and select the variable set that contains your translatable variables.
Paligo opens the variable set in the variable set editor.
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Export translation
Paligo downloads a zip file in your browser. Send this zip file to your translation service
When the translation service have finished translating the variable set, they will return it to you. When you receive it, import it back into Paligo. Paligo will then add the translations to your Paligo content.
When your translation service complete their work on your variable set, they will return a files for each language. You will need to zip each language file individually, and then import each one into Paligo.
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Use your computer's operating system to create a zip file for each different language returned by the translation agency. For example, if you have Swedish, Italian, and Danish, you need to create one zip file for Swedish, another zip file for Italian, and another zip file for Danish.
If you are unsure how to do this, you can find lots of instructions online, for example:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/zip-and-unzip-files
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchlp2528/mac
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In Paligo, expand Variable sets in the Content Manager, and then select your translatable variable set. Paligo opens it in the variable set editor.
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Select the cog icon in the top corner of the variable set editor, and then select Import translation.
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Choose a translation zip file and select Upload.
Paligo adds the translations to the appropriate language and content in the variable set.
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Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have uploaded all of the translation zip files.
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