How to translate theme and module in Prestashop 1.7
A New translation system on Prestashop 1.7
Prestashop supports multilingual. You can build a store with different languages. And it's a must-have feature in your site if you are running your business in different countries.
To build a multilingual prestashop site, you need to know how to translate theme and modules. Here is the 4 steps of how to translate Leo Pretashop theme and module in Prestashop 1.7
+) Install language package
+) Translate theme - Font office and Back-office
+) Translate installed modules
+) Other Translation
1. Install Language Package
After installing Prestashop 1.7 in English language you might wonder how you can install other languages for you store. The process is quite simple and does not require programming skills though you need to know where you need to click.
At first, you login into back office:
In the left menu, you will see the admin panel called IMPROVE. In this section user will see a tab called INTERNATIONAl. First of all we need to navigate to Localization.
Navigate to Languages to see all languages that are already added to your installation.
Developers said that Prestashop 1.7 is ready for translation. There are some languages that are already translated 100% and some language packages are not translated full or not approved yet. You can check the languages packages HERE!
Step to add a language automatically in Prestashop 1.7
Navigate to IMPROVE / International / Translations
Find a block called ADD / UPDATE A LANGUAGE. Select the language you need from the dropdown list, press Add or update a language.
And a new language is added to your Prestashop installation:
And when you navigate to Languages, you’ll see that English is not alone anymore.
And on frontend you can select a language:
2. Export a Language
You can create your own language pack using this tool, either as a way of making a backup of your customizations, or in order to share your translations with other PrestaShop installation – your own or someone else's.
3. Copy language
You can copy the content of one language to another. This is especially useful when you wish to replace a theme's language with the same language from another theme.
Choose the source language and theme, then the destination language and theme, then click the "Copy" button. In most case, the language should remain the same in both drop-down lists.
4. Modifying a translation
The most important tool of the “Translation “page is in the “Modify translations “section. This is where you can choose to add a translation and completely customize each and every sentence.
At first you choose the part of the current translation you want to edit:
- Back office translations. The text visible to you and your team from your store's administration panel.
- Theme translations. The text visible to your customers when browsing your store.
- Installed modules translations. The content from the modules. Note that modules which are available but not installed will not appear in the tool.
- E-mail translations. The terms used in the default email templates.
- Other translations. This category is meant to disappear in a coming version. It contains expressions that haven't been identified as being from the theme or the back office yet.
When you finish this process, you choose language you want to translate and click on “Modify”
A New page will be shown where you can manage translations. It is divided into some sections.
5. Searching for an expression:
it is located in top of the page, it help you find a specific word or sentence that you want to translate.
On the right, it shows the number of expressions available in this section.
6. Browsing translation:
The left column is here to help you browse through the various strings available in the category you want to translate or modify. It relies on what we call translation domains: each expression within PrestaShop is assigned a domain, giving translators more context, and making it possible to know where this expression is displayed in PrestaShop, and what it is about.
For the back office and front office section, you will see two main domains, the second being modules. Indeed, modules have content that can either be displayed on the back or the front office, so these expressions will be available when you want to translate the back or front office.
Next to each domain, the number of missing expressions is displayed. It helps you know where you should focus is you want to fully translate PrestaShop.
To see the expressions for a domain, click its name: you will see all the expressions on the right.
7. Modifying translations:
When you open a domain to see all its strings, you can then modify existing translations, or fill out missing ones.
Clicking "Save" will logically save your changes.
Clicking "Reset" will replace your custom translation by the official PrestaShop translations: it either restores the initial translation if a translation was available or empties the field if no translation was available.
In case of a string with a placeholder, you should make sure that the content of that placeholder will be placed in the correct flow of the sentence, and avoid literal translation.
Numbered placeholders (%1$s, %2$d, etc.) enable translators to rearrange the order of the placeholders in the string while maintaining the information each is replaced with. This way, a French translator could choose to translate "Order #%1$d from %2$s" into "Commande n°%1$s du %2$s" or "Le %2$s, commande n°%1$s".
8. Modules translations:
When you wish to translate a specific module, choose "Installed modules translations", then select the one module you want to edit. It will open a new page with the content from this module, and all its available strings.
9. Email templates:
The way email templates translations are handled is a bit different from the other translations.
Strings are split into fieldsets, but they are not simple text fields anymore. Each e-mail has two templates: a HTML one, which is styled and colored, and a text one, when is plain and simple. While the plain text one can be edited directly in the textfield, the HTML one can only be edited by clicking on the "Edit this e-mail template" button at the bottom of the preview. That click turns the preview into a WYSIWYG textfield (what you see is what you get), with a complete editor at the top (based on TinyMCE: http://www.tinymce.com/). In addition to editing the text, you can change the design as you see fit, for instance you can change the colors in order to adhere to your shop's design.
Note:
- That the e-mail templates feature placeholders, such as {lastname} or {shop_name}, which PrestaShop replaces with the actual values when sending the e-mail. Make sure to keep them in both your translation.
- Part of the module that override tpl not written back, similar in theme tpl file depending on the situation.
- Prestashop 1.6 the translation is saved one time.
- Prestashop 1.7 click and translate them one by one and, after they must save each one.
- Prestashop 1.7 the translation table for modules and complete theme is translated in the backend.
