Translating with the WordPress Connector

This article is for Account Owners and Project Managers and assumes that you have WordPress admin access.

The Smartling WordPress Connector (also known as the Smartling Plugin), allows you to translate WordPress content in Smartling. Translations are requested from within WordPress, and translated content is automatically returned to your environment.

The WordPress Connector supports translation of Posts, Pages, Categories, Tags, Theme Widgets, and Navigation Menus. Once you've installed and configured the WordPress Connector, you can begin submitting content for translation to Smartling.

Request Translations

To translate WordPress content:

1. Click the content title or click Edit to open in the Editor
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the Smartling Upload Widget
3. Choose to create a new translation Job, add the content to an existing Job, or clone content to the target destination.
4. Complete the fields in the Widget and click Create Job or Add to selected Job to commence the translation process in Smartling

Posts and Pages

Before adding your Post/Page to a new or existing job, make sure that you have already entered content in the body of the Post/Page and saved your draft. Otherwise, you may get an error.

When adding a new Post/Page to an existing job that already has content, the job can be renamed in the Name field, and will contain the new Post/Page and any pre-existing ones.

By default, Authorize Job is enabled. This automatically sets up your saved draft to begin the translation process in Smartling. (Uncheck Authorize Job if you are not yet ready to begin the translation process. However, once you are ready to authorize the job, you will need to log in to Smartling > Content > Jobs to do that.) 

The related content selection controls how much related content will be sent along with the current post. Related content may include taxonomies (categories, tags, …), images (including featured image) and other content found inside post/page content and metadata. Related content sent this way is refreshed upon page load only. This means that any changes to related content won’t be sent for translation, unless the page is saved and the browser is refreshed.

• Don’t send related content: only the content on the current is sent for translation.
• Send related content one level deep: the page and it’s direct related content is sent for translation. In most cases, this setting should send all related content so that after translation, the target would include it, and it will not appear broken.
• Send related content two levels deep: this is for more complex setups, for example, using other content IDs with proper setup in the fine tuning section. In this example, all content one level deep from referenced content is included as well for translation.

All Other Types of Content

Once you have created any of the following items listed below, submit the content for translation via the Smartling > Bulk Submit menu.

• Categories
• Tags
• Navigation Menus
• Theme Widgets
• Media

Use the Type filter to display the content you wish to add to a new or existing job. See Posts and Pages regarding renaming an existing job, as well as authorizing the job. The same procedures apply.

When using Bulk Submit, there may be a slight delay before content appears in Smartling. The WordPress Connector will only send selected content for translation/cloning, no related content will be sent. 

Smartling Bulk Submit

Translate or Clone

Smartling > Bulk Submit

Bulk Submit gives you the option to translate content or clone it for editing.

Click Clone and choose the target sites you want the content to be applied to.

When cloning, the strings are not sent to Smartling for translation, but are instead applied to the target blog immediately.

The WordPress Connector will change metadata based on the configuration; some fields may be excluded, links might be changed, and related content IDs might be changed too if the related content was already sent for translation or cloned previously. 

Include Visual Context

Visual context helps linguists get your translations right the first time - reducing translation cost and time to market. Use our Chrome Context plugin to capture and associate visual context with your translation requests after they've been submitted to Smartling.

Want to automate visual context capture? See our Context Tool Developer Guides.

Check Status of Translations

To check the progress of submitted content, within WordPress, go to the Smartling > Translation Progress menu and filter for the content you wish to see.

Translation progress is displayed as a percent in the Progress column. The overall status of the translation request is listed in the Status column.

If your translation request shows a failed status, you can resubmit the request from the Translation Progress page. Use the Bulk Actions menu to resend translation requests if multiple submissions fail.

Download Translations

Automatic

The Smartling Connector can be configured to download translated content once it is complete on a schedule defined in your Wordpress configuration.

Manual

You can download translations manually from the Smartling Widget for any Post, Page, Category, Tag, Theme Widget, or Navigation Menu by clicking the Download button.

You can download translations manually in bulk from the Smartling Connector Translation Progress tab:

1. From within WordPress, click on Smartling > Translation Progress from the admin menu on the left hand side of the screen.
2. Use the filter at the top of the screen to find your translation requests.
3. Select individual pieces of content for translation using the checkbox next to each item, or click the checkbox at the top of the content table to select all items at once.
4. From the Bulk Actions menu, select Enqueue for Download.
5. Click Apply.

Bulk actions are executed by a scheduled task to prevent slowing down your WordPress instance.

Publishing Translated Posts

The Smartling Connector can be configured to automatically publish translated content once it is returned to your WordPress instance.

If this setting is disabled, you will need to manually publish your post, page, category, tag, theme widget, or navigation menu using the Publish widget once translations are complete to make the content available to your end users.

If you submitted an item for translation, but excluded it from translation within Smartling, it may appear in English on localized sites. This is because when a post is completely excluded, 0 of 0 strings are translated, and therefore 100% translation complete. If the "Publish completed translation" option in Expert Settings is enabled, then the translations will be published on target sites. You should, therefore, not exclude the content.

Handling Updates to WordPress Content

Automatic

The Smartling connector can be configured to automatically resubmit content to Smartling for translation whenever a change is detected in your source content.

Manual

If your resubmit mode is set to manual, you will need to resubmit WordPress content as described above. Only the new WordPress content from a post, page, category, tag, theme widget, or navigation menu will be authorized for translation in Smartling.

Lock a Translated Post

If you want to prevent a translated post from being affected by changes to the original post, you can lock the translation:

1. Switch to the dashboard for your translated site by clicking on My Sites > [Your Translated Site].
2. Navigate to your desired content, click on Translation Lock in the Publish Widget and check the boxes for any content to be locked.
3. Click Update.

You can lock content in bulk using the Bulk Action menu in Smartling > Translation Progress.

Lock a Translated Post’s Gutenberg block

If you want to prevent some Gutenberg blocks in the posts' content from being changed, you can lock the translation:

1. Ensure that the target block has the smartlingLockId attribute set before the content is sent for translation. You can enable automatic lock ids generation for all blocks by going to the Expert Settings and changing the Generate lock ids on editing content setting to Automatic.
   • Note that the WP Connector will still only generate lock ids if it detects that the post is in one of the source blogs, so you will need to save and reload the post if you’re adding a new post. Ensure that the lock IDs are present and same in both the source and target content.
2. Navigate to the translated content, select the block, and toggle the checkbox in the Smartling lock panel in the sidebar.
3. Save the content.

There is also a possibility to lock block attributes in a Gutenberg block. To accomplish this, manually add the attribute smartlingLockedAttributes to the block and set its string value to the comma-separated list of attributes you do not want to be changed when translations are applied.

Seeing unexpected connector behavior? Check your Connector configuration settings, expert settings, or download your connector logs and contact support@smartling.com.