Translating the site

How WPGlotty finds text

Plugins that translate through individual WordPress filters need to handle each type of content separately. Text outside those filters can stay in the source language, such as text in widgets, menus and footers.

WPGlotty reads the finished HTML sent to the browser instead. This includes page-builder content, headers, footers, templates, global blocks, popups, menus and widgets. It also includes theme and plugin text, image alt text and SEO fields. Because all of it is part of the page, WPGlotty can translate it.

What WPGlotty leaves as it is

When WordPress already prints a plugin’s or theme’s text in the page’s language, WPGlotty keeps that text. WordPress does this from the plugin’s own translation file, a wordpress.org language pack, or a tool such as Loco Translate. WPGlotty does not queue that text and does not charge for it.

The same goes for English pages. Almost every theme and plugin writes its own text in English, so on an English page WPGlotty shows that text as the plugin wrote it. It only translates theme and plugin text written in another language, such as a plugin a Dutch agency built for your site.

A correction you type by hand still wins. This covers text that goes through WordPress’s own translation functions, not text a plugin keeps in its own settings screen.

Text whose numbers change

WPGlotty translates a clock such as “Tuesday 14:12” or a count such as “3 places left” only once, as a pattern. It fills in the current numbers on every view. A clock becomes a pattern straight away; other text becomes one once WPGlotty has seen it with a different number.

This covers whole numbers and times only. When a price has decimals, such as €12.50, or a thousands separator, WPGlotty translates the sentence around it as a whole. Each language then keeps its own notation. Text whose numbers never change, such as “Founded in 1998”, is translated as a whole.

The first run

Go to WPGlotty → Translation status. Click Translate the whole site in every language, or Translate whole site on one language’s card. On credits, first check the word estimate and your balance.

WPGlotty reads pages, collects text and translates it in batches using WordPress cron. You can close the tab while it works. The screen shows queued, completed and failed translations.

Anything it missed

The first run can miss text in unopened popups or search results that nobody has requested. Automatic translation picks this text up later. When a visitor opens a page with untranslated text, WPGlotty can translate it as the page loads.

Go to WPGlotty, then Settings, and open the Translation settings tab. The Automatic translation row has three choices for handling untranslated text.

• On, while the page loads: the first visitor waits, everyone after them reads it translated
• On, in the background: show the original now and translate it for the next visitor
• Off: nothing is translated automatically; new text waits until you start a run or translate it in the editor

Review before publishing

Machine translations go live by default. Under Publishing, untick “Show machine translations live straight away”. Visitors then see source text until someone approves the translation in the editor or under Strings.

This suits regulated copy that someone must check before it goes live. Make sure somebody works through the queue, or translations will sit there unpublished.

What it costs

You pay to translate text, not display it. Saved translations load from your database; page views cost nothing. A credits run translates what fits, then resumes after a top-up.

First-run costs depend mainly on word count and target languages. Your account’s credits page shows usage by day, language and site. For own-key spending by model, see your account’s licence page or Cost on Translation status.