Translating Your Custom Text

The built-in translations cover the plugin’s own text, but not the texts you type yourself: your welcome message, your announcement, your renamed menu items. On a site with WPML or Polylang, you can give each of those texts a version per language right in the plugin settings, without any extra add-on.

Before you start#

You need WPML or Polylang active with at least one language besides the default language. Without one, the Translations tab shows “No additional languages found.” and Content & Text shows “No additional languages. Install WPML or Polylang to add them.”

The plugin reads the language list from WPML or Polylang; the default language is your original text, and every other language gets its own button.

Where to translate#

Two tabs have language panels. They save into the same place, so a translation typed on one tab shows on the other.

Tab	What you translate there
Content & Text	Portal Page Title, Welcome Title, Welcome Message, Auth Page Tagline, Announcement, the Dashboard’s Help & contact and Custom content texts, and Navigation Menu Labels
Translations	Page Text (Portal Page Title, Welcome Title, Welcome Message, Auth Page Tagline), Portal UI Strings (the “Back to [site]” link, Sign out label, Toggle: Light mode, Toggle: Dark mode) and Navigation Menu Labels

Your own account pages (made on the Pages tab) are translated on the Pages tab, which has the same language buttons above each page.

Translate your texts#

1. Go to WooCommerce > Account Portal > Translations (or Content & Text).
2. Click the language button at the top, for example French / Français. Each button shows how many of its fields are filled, such as 3/8.
3. Type the translation in each field you want to translate. Under each field you see the Original text with two buttons:
   • Copy puts the original on your clipboard, to paste into a translation tool.
   • Use as start puts the original into the field so you can edit it.
4. Click another language button to continue. The page does not reload, so nothing is lost.
5. Click Save Settings once. Every language is saved together.

Leave a field empty to show the original text in that language.

The “Back to [site]” link#

Type [site] where the site name should go, for example Retour à [site]. The portal puts your site name there.

Fill in built-in translations#

The Fill in built-in translations button fills the empty fields of the language you are looking at with the plugin’s own translation of its default texts: menu names such as “Your Orders” or “Addresses”, “Welcome back, {{first_name}}!”, the tagline “Your account, your way.”, the default welcome message and the four portal UI strings.

• Only empty fields are filled. A field you already typed in is never changed.
• Only fields whose original is still a plugin default are filled. Your own texts stay empty for you to translate.
• It also recognises a default that is already in another built-in language (for example an Arabic site whose original texts are in Arabic).
• Nothing is saved until you click Save Settings, so you can check the result first.

After a click, a short message says what happened:

Message	Meaning
Filled 5 fields with the built-in translation. Check them, then save.	Fields were filled (the number varies).
Nothing to fill: the empty fields here are your own texts, which have no built-in translation.	Every remaining empty field holds your own text.
The plugin has no built-in translation for this language. Built-in: …	The plugin has no file for this language; the message lists the languages it has.

For the language, the plugin uses the file for the exact locale first (for example pt_BR), then any file for the same language (an es_MX language uses the es_ES file).

Which text the customer sees#

For each text, in a language other than the default:

1. Your translation from Content & Text or Translations, when the field is filled.
2. Otherwise, a translation from WPML String Translation, for the texts registered there (see Using the Portal with WPML).
3. Otherwise, the original text. If the original is still the plugin’s English default, the built-in translation is shown instead.

In the default language, the original text is used, with the same rule for untouched English defaults.

Good to know#

• Menu labels are listed for the menu items that are switched on. Labels you typed for an item you switch off later are kept.
• Merge tags such as {{first_name}} work in the translations the same way as in the original.
• Fields for RTL languages are typed right to left, and their language button has an RTL badge.
• Export / Import includes every translation, so a multilingual setup can be copied to another site in one file.

Related#

• Changing the Portal’s Text (Content & Text)
• Languages and RTL Support
• Using the Portal with WPML
• Exporting and Importing Your Settings