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Translating Themes

Themify allows you to translate each theme into different languages without having to edit the template files. It can be translated with the free Poedit software or translation plugins such as Loco Translate. You can also purchase the premium WPML plugin, if you need more advanced features such as translating custom types, taxonomy, and menus.

Option A) Translating with Loco Translate plugin

1. Install and activate the Loco Translate plugin
2. Go to Loco Translate then in the list of themes find the desired theme name. And click on "+ New Language"
   
3. You'll then see an option where you can "Create a template", or "Skip a template". Both will allow you to translate the theme. We do, however, recommend creating a template this will allow faster translation when you're translating multiple strings.
4. After creating a template, you can now select the language from the list or enter your own custom language if it's not on the list, and click "Start Translating".
   
5. Now you will see a list of words. You can either scroll to find your word to translate or use the "Filter translation" search option and type in the word you are looking for. Once you select your word enter it's translation in the "Translation" field.
6. Click on "Save"
7. Click on "Sync".
8. Then go to Settings > General under "Site Language" option to select the language.

Missing translation strings

Sometimes you may find yourself unable to locate a particular string that is present in the theme to be in your language files. Commonly this could be due to updating from older versions which would miss the new strings. To add the missing texts to your translation files follow:

1. Go to LocoTranslate > Theme and select your theme
2. Select Edit Template:
   
   

   Editing template in LocoTranslate

   
   Then in the new screen click on the Sync button once and save. This forces Loco to go and look for missing texts inside the theme and add them to the template.
3. Now back to LocoTranslate > Theme and select your theme again, this time click on the language you're translating, to edit the translation file.
4. In this screen click the Sync as well, so now the this translation file syncs up with the template file (done in step 2).

Option B) Translating with the WPML plugin

The WMPL plugin is a popular WordPress translator that allows your site visitors to choose which language they would like to view on your site.

1. Install WPML plugin
2. Once enabled, go to the Multilingual Widget on your Admin Dashboard. This will give you access to different functions in WPML.
3. Here's a detailed documentation if you would like to translate using String Translation.
4. If you would like an in-depth tutorial on how to translate your site content using the WPML plugin, go to their getting started documentation. The documentation provides screenshots and demo video that'll help you use the plugin.

Option C) Translating with Poedit

If you don't have the Poedit software, download and install it first.

Step 1: Create a new catalog: Start Poedit and go to File > New. You'll then be prompted with the option "Language of the translation". Select the language from the dropdown option panel and select "Ok".

Then save the file on the theme > languages folder. After saving the file click on the "Extract from Sources" option:

The properties option panel will then open. Click on the "+" sign then "Add folder". Select the theme folder that you're looking to translate (i.e. Themify Ultra).

In the Translation properties tab, set the project name and version. You can dismiss most options, but make sure you set the Charset and Source code charset to "UTF-8 (recommended)".

Go to the Sources keywords tab, for each of the following strings, click on New Item and type the characters indicated:

• __
• _e
• _n:1,2
• _x

Note: "__" string is composed of two underscore characters.

Finally click OK and save it in the languages sub-folder in your theme folder. Name the file after your language locale. For example, name it fr_FR for French, es_ES for spanish, pt_BR for brazilian portuguese and so on (read this list for more codes).

Step 2: Translating strings: After saving, Poedit will pickup all strings available for translation. When it's done, you should see a list of strings (in English) used in the theme. Go through the list and enter the translation text in the lower box. When you are done, click File > Save and Poedit will generate a .mo file (eg. fr_FR.mo) automatically on save. If you don't see the .mo file, go to Poedit > Preferences, under the "Editor" tab, check "Automatically compile .mo file on save".

Step 3: Upload the PO and MO File (if you were working locally) If you were working on a local test server, you'll have to upload the .po and .mo file (generated from Poedit) to the "theme/languages" folder through FTP.