Translate pages

Overview

You can create a new language translation of an existing page. The system displays all language translations, in which a page exists in the following way:
  • On Pages page:
    TranslatePagesGrid

    NOTE: If you have added more than three language translation, on Pages page the system displays only the first two language icons. To view all created languages, click on the + icon, indicating the number of remaining translations to expand the list

  • In page editing mode:

    TranslatePageEditMode

   

  • Language translations of pages, whose language icons are dark blue, already exist.
  • Language translations of pages, whose icons are light blue, have not been created yet.

 

NOTE: Before you create a page in a different than the default language, you must have added this language in the settings of Sitefinity CMS. For more information, see Setup languages.

For more information about creating a new page in different languages, see Create a page.

The system displays pages that exist in multiple languages in the following way:

  • The following screenshot displays the English version of a sitemap:
    Sitemap_EN      

    NOTE: In Languages dropdown box in the right pane, English is selected.

  • The following screenshot displays the German version of the same sitemap:  
    Sitemap_DE

    NOTE: In Languages dropdown box in the Filter pane, German is selected.

    The pages that appear inactive have no translation in the language, selected in Languages dropdown.

    NOTE: Different language translations of one page can be in different statuses and can be at a different stage in the lifecycle workflow.
    For more information about synchronizing translations, see Translate an existing page » Step 3.
    For more information, see Overview: Content lifecycle and workflow.

NOTE: The content items, which are displayed on the page, can also have language translations. When a content item exists in different languages, each translation is displayed with its respective page translation.
For example, a news item in Spanish is displayed in the News widget in the Spanish version of the page, the English news item is displayed in the English version of the page. If the French translation of the page contains the News widget, but there is no French version of the news, the widget does not display anything. For more information, see Translate content items and taxonomies.

To switch between different language translations in the public part of your website, you must add and configure the Language selector widget to the page.

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.

To translate a Sitefinity CMS page, perform the following procedure:
  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 FilterIcon, 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:

      StopSyncing

      • 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 Page templates and pages.

    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.

Edit the properties of a translated page

Perform the following procedure:
  1. In the Languages dropdown box, select the language, in which you want to edit the page.
  2. Perform procedure Edit and delete a page » Editing the properties of a page.

Editing the content of a translated page

Perform the following procedure:
  1. You edit a language translation of a page in one of the following ways:
    • On Pages page, click the Edit link under the respective language icon.
    • On Pages page, in Languages field on the right, select the desired language and click the name of the page, which you want to edit.
  2. Perform procedure Edit and delete a page » Edit the content of a page.

NOTE: If when creating the language translation of the page, you have clicked Create and return to Pages without going to content editing mode, before performing Step 2 of the above procedure, you must perform Translate an existing page » Step 3.

Delete a language translation of a page

On Pages page, you delete a language translation by selecting the respective language in Languages dropdown box and performing one of the following:
  • Select the page(s), whose translation(s) you want to delete and click Delete button in the toolbar.
  • Click the Actions link of the respective page and click Delete.

IMPORTANT: The system asks you, if you want to delete only the current translation of the page or all translations of this page.

Increase your Sitefinity skills by signing up for our free trainings. Get Sitefinity-certified at Progress Education Community to boost your credentials.

Get started with Integration Hub | Sitefinity Cloud | Sitefinity SaaS

This free lesson teaches administrators, marketers, and other business professionals how to use the Integration hub service to create automated workflows between Sitefinity and other business systems.

Web Security for Sitefinity Administrators

This free lesson teaches administrators the basics about protecting yor Sitefinity instance and its sites from external threats. Configure HTTPS, SSL, allow lists for trusted sites, and cookie security, among others.

Foundations of Sitefinity ASP.NET Core Development

The free on-demand video course teaches developers how to use Sitefinity .NET Core and leverage its decoupled architecture and new way of coding against the platform.

Was this article helpful?

Next article

Recycle bin