The main obstacle encountered by French-speaking users of WordPress is that most of its plugins and themes are mainly (not to say by default) in English. Most users therefore fail to fully take the interface of its plugins and themes in hand, This is mainly due to the language barrier.

And even if some themes and plugins offer language files (.PO), they are not all translated, especially because until now, there was no tool (available for all) That allowed to translate these files.

But now this is no longer a problem, because in this tutorial, we will show you how to translate your plugins and themes from your WordPress dashboard.

Loco is a free service for managing and editing software translations. It offers an environment in which you can manage the content associated with translations and work with collaborators.

acme-of-translation platform

This platform also offers a .PO file editor (language file used on WordPress), whose features are similar to those on Poedit, but unlike Poedit, all the work is done on your browser.

loco-add-a-po-file-to-start

(Add a ".PO" file to modify)

The service analysis the file and prepares it for translation on the browser. Once you have completed your edits, you can download the new version of the “.PO” file and/or “.MO” files, or create an account (optional) and store your files on Loco.

interface de-loco translation

How to translate your themes and plugins from your dashboard

Tim Whitlock, founder of the Loco Translation Management System, created a plugin (Available on WordPress.org) that allows users to translate plugins and themes directly from their WordPress dashboard. Loco Translate brings the ".PO" file editor to your WordPress installation.

By accessing the following location " Tools >> Manage translations You will be able to see all the translation files of your themes and plugins (and the percentage of translation for each language).

Management-of-translations-of-each-plugins-and-theme-wordpress

Choose from one of the available translations to start translating on your Loco editor.

Translation-of-a-file de-language on-wordpress

When you save a new file ".PO Loco will try to compile a file.MO On the same file. It was designed to work only with ".PO And allows you to keep them up-to-date with source code without interfering with file maintenance.POT ". The plugin includes the following features:

  • Poedit editor added to the WordPress dashboard
  • Create and update language files directly on your themes or plugins
  • Extract of the translatable strings of the source code
  • Offers a native compilation of the file .MO », Without having to install the Gettext application on your computer
  • Offers the features related to ".PO" files, comments, references and plural forms are included.
  • Configuration of the file backup system ".PO »

« Loco Translate »Does not currently offer the possibility of automatically translating your project. It is only able to manage the manual entry of translations.

The Loco service and the plugin Loco Translate » make the translation of themes and WordPress plugins much more convenient. You will no longer need to add an additional translation program to your computer.

THEaccommodation of your files on the free Loco service is entirely optional, but it has the advantage of providing a place where you can work collaboratively on a project.

You don't need to be a developer to use the translation tools on your WordPress dashboard. Having these tools handy on your dashboard can make your job a lot easier, especially if you regularly install themes and plugins for clients.

We hope you find this tutorial useful. Let us know what you think, and feel free to leave us a comment or share the article.