In addition to translating your text content, you may want to display different images on your translated sites. For example, if you mark up a screenshot with textual information, the translated version of that content should have its own image. Even if they are just product screenshots, the reader should see the screenshot in their language to ensure the best understanding.
Smartling provides a feature to help you automate the process of using localized images in your localized content. This feature is applied by the Smartling Zendesk Connector and is not a feature of the Zendesk platform. It uses a common image file naming convention to manage localized versions of what are essentially the same image.
How It Works
If you want an image to be localized, update the file name of the source language version of the image to have the source language locale ID in its name.
When Smartling detects that the source content has images with this convention, it will look for a version of the image file with the target locale ID and if found it will use that image in the localized version of the article that is published to Zendesk.
If an image doesn’t use the naming convention or if a specific target language doesn’t have a corresponding localized version, then the source image will be used for that specific target language.
The Zendesk Connector rewrites attachment links in the HTML <img> tags when delivering translated articles to Zendesk. If the connector sees there is a localized version of the source image, then it will update the <img> links in the translated article, which results in the localized image appearing on the translated page.
Important Considerations
It’s important to use this feature if you want localized images because it is not recommended that you make any edits to the localized content in Zendesk when Smartling is being used to translate the content. Any changes made to the localized content directly in Zendesk may be lost when Smartling updates the localized content.
Updates can be triggered automatically or manually depending on your configuration. Smartling will always overwrite the localized content no matter what its state is. Using this feature and convention will save you the trouble of needing to manually assign localized images and make sure they will always be used no matter what updates are made to the content's translations in Smartling.
Localized images will have the same re-sizing applied as your source image, so for best results, your localized images should have the same original dimensions as your source image.
This convention uses the Zendesk locale codes in the image file names, not the Smartling locale code. For example the Zendesk locale code for German is de, for localized German images use de in the file name. If you are using French (France) the locale code is fr-fr.
We recommend keeping image names under 30 characters to avoid issues with image localization. While longer names are allowed, having multiple images with the same first 30 characters may cause the connector to make additional calls to the Zendesk API due to its limitations, which can affect performance and rate limits.
Step-by-Step Guide
- For the image displayed in the original source language (your primary language), update the image file name to include the source language’s Zendesk locale code in the name.
- For example, if your file is LocalizedImage.png, and your source language is English (United States), rename the file LocalizedImage_en-us.png.
- You must use this naming convention for the file you upload to Zendesk and insert it in the source article.
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Insert the source image in your Zendesk article, position and resize it as you like.
- Rename your localized images to have the same name as your source image, but with the appropriate locale code. For example, LocalizedImage_fr-fr.png and LocalizedImage_de.png.
- In the Zendesk Editor, click Insert Image.
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Upload each of your localized images under All Media.
Your localized images don't need to be linked to the source article. Simply upload the localized images to the Media library. Once the translations are delivered, the localized images will automatically be associated with the translated versions of the article.
- Click the "X" at the top-right corner or the Cancel button to close the window after all your images have been uploaded.
If the images have already been uploaded to Zendesk, you do not need to re-upload them. If the image names need to be corrected, you can simply click on the name of the image to open the editor. After you are done editing the image title, click Save media.
- Translate your Zendesk article as normal.
Once your translated articles are published, the localized images should display on your translated sites in the same position and at the same size as the source image.