Translate an existing page

Siteifntiy CMS enables you to create multiple language versions of your website. You can create a translation for your pages in any language you have enabled for your site, and customize the page properties, for example change the title, URL, and so on. When you create a translation of a page, Sitefinity CMS automatically serves website visitors the content of that page in the currently selected language, if a translation is available.

1. You create a new language translation of an existing page in one of the following ways:
   • On the Pages screen, click on the respective language icon.
   • Open the page in page editing mode and in the upper-left corner of the page, click the language icon and select the desired language from the list.
   • On Pages screen, click on the Filter icon , located next to the Create a page button. From the Filter pages sidebar, use the Languages dropdown and select the desired language. The Pages screen displays the sitemap for this language version of the site. Click the name of the page, which you want to translate.
     The name of the page appears inactive, to show that the page has no translation in the selected language.
2. Perform the steps from procedure Create a page and modify its properties (Step 4 and onward), populating only the relevant fields.
3. When you create a translation of an existing page, on the Page title and properties screen you must select one of the following options:
   • Copy content and widgets from....
     Тhe dropdown displays the available languages you can copy your page contents from. Use this option to start your page translation by copying the content and widgets from another language version of the page and configuring them on the next steps. This approach is useful in case your pages have similar layout and content across all translations.
   • Keep all language versions synced as one page 
     This means that all created language versions of the page will have the same layout and widgets, but the widgets can be configured differently. Any changes to any of the translations will apply to all other translations.
     After that, every other language translation you create is synchronized with the existing and the system does not ask you, if you want to copy or create a new language translation.

     When you choose this option, when a language translation of the page is opened in page editing mode, and you click on the language icon the system displays the following:

     

     • If you want to stop the synchronization between the different language translations, click Stop syncing.
       After that, you can edit each page translation separately.

       NOTE: Once you stop the synchronization between the different languages, you cannot synchronize them again. You have different versions of one page.

     • To display the icons of all language versions, click Show other translations.
       The icons appear and from there you can add new language translations for this page.
     • NOTE: If you have language versions of a page that are not synchronized and are different, after adding another language from the system settings and creating a new language translation in this language, you can choose if you want the new translation to have the same layout and widgets as some of the existing translations. In this case, if you have more than one existing translations, the dropdown box is active and you can choose an already existing language version.
     • NOTE: Syncing of translations does not depend on page hierarchy. You can have a parent page whose translations are not synced, but the translations of its child pages can by synced.
   • Start from scratch
     Click this link, if you want the different language translations to have different layouts and status.
   • The language translation of the page is created and the system opens the page in content editing mode.

   NOTE: When you create a translation of an existing page, the system does not display the Template section. You do not select a layout at this step, but at Step 5 of the current procedure, where you must choose whether you want to use the current template of the page or design a new one, just for this translation.

4. Click Save changes
5. Use the page editing mode to customize the layout of the page, add content by adding widgets, and apply themes.
   For more information, see Design a layout template, Add widgets on pages and templates, and Apply a template to a page.

   NOTE: If your pages are synchronized, any modifications to the layout or the widgets are applied to all existing language translations of the page.
   When you choose to display content items that have different translations, the translation displayed depends on the page translation, which you are working with.
   For example, if you have added the News widget to a German translation of a page, the widget displays only the news items that have German translation. If for the items, you have chosen, no German translation exists, nothing is displayed.

6. When you are finished editing, perform procedure Set the status of new pages and content items.