After showing you how to translate using the WordPress WPML plugin sections, such as pages or categories, we come to the last part of the translation process: localisation of Plugins and themes. Shall we get started?
Locating Plug-ins and Themes
Although we have left locating plug-ins and themes until the end in this WPML guide, it’s no less important. This is an aspect that often goes unnoticed but ends up causing certain text strings to appear in the original language of the themes and plug-ins.
When we talk about these elements, we refer to typical texts, usually in English, including “post by”, “tags” or “search by category”.
It should be emphasised that many themes and plug-ins are already translated into other languages, especially those that are popular, but these translations are sometimes not carried out by professionals, therefore they have many errors or be of a bad quality.
When locating themes or plug-ins on WordPress (or modifying the existing ones in their absence), WPML allows you to do this in three ways, a setting that can be performed from WPML > Locating Themes and Plug-ins.
Our chosen option and the one we recommend in this WPML guide is the first: only translate using WPML string translation and do not load .mo files. Why? Because it’s simple, practical and, of course, it prevents errors and faults that could end up with a user seeing chains poorly translated by bad quality .mo files.
Once we have chosen this option, WPML will review the entire Theme and plug-ins in search of texts that are translatable, generating a report with the strings that are found and will allow translations to be carried out within WordPress:
- Scanning the Theme in search of strings. In order to carry this out, you must click on “Scan the theme for strings”. The scan will show you the number of strings found in the Theme and their translation status. To translate them, you must click on “View strings pending translation”, a step that will guide you to the String Translation section, where you can start translating each text located in the Theme.
- Scanning the plug-ins in search of strings. As we have explained with the Theme, WPML is able to scan plug-ins in search of chains to translate and the process is identical.
You can now access String Translation to complete the translation process in WPML. We will show you a screenshot of the Akismet plug-in, widely used to filter unwanted comments or SPAM.
Remember that once you have completed the translation of a chain into a certain language, you must click on “Translation completed” and click the “Save” button.
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