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Using the Expert Translation Option on Sites Built with ACF and WPML

Kathy Banach
Updated
February 12, 2025

Expert mode lets you decide how to translate ACF custom fields, giving you more control over how your content appears in different languages.

Let’s say your Contact page uses ACF’s Email and Link fields. Instead of using the same email address and URLs in every language, you want each language version to have its own content.

Contact page built with custom fields in the default language

Contact page in the secondary language with translated Email and Link custom fields

In cases like this, you can use ACFML’s Expert mode. It lets you decide how to handle each custom field in your translations.

If you set up your site with ACF and WPML before ACFML 2.0 was released, your existing field groups will use Expert mode. This lets you keep your current multilingual setup and translations as they are.

1. Decide How to Translate Each Custom Field in Your Field Group

With WPML, you can choose between four translation preferences for each custom field in your field group:

  • Translate
  • Copy 
  • Copy Once
  • Don’t translate 

You can set them either in the Custom Fields Translation section in WPML → Settings or the field group edit screen in ACF → Field Groups.

To learn more, check out our guide to translation preferences for ACF custom fields.

2. Translate the Custom Fields

Once you set your translation preferences, WPML offers two ways to translate your custom fields.

How to Translate Custom Fields for Consistent Values and Layout Across Languages

To display the same content across all languages, just only need to send the post or page along with its attached custom fields for translation.

Start by making sure each of the custom fields across your different field groups have a unique Field Name. If you assign the same Field Name to more than one custom field, you may not see all your field values available for translation in the Advanced Translation Editor.

Then:

  1. Go to WPML → Translation Management.
  2. Select the post or page that has the custom fields assigned to it.
Selecting the post with assigned custom fields in Translation Management
  1. Choose a translation method and click to Translate.

How to Translate Custom Fields for Different Values and Layout Across Languages

To use different custom field values, have a different number of fields, or have a different field order across languages:

  1. Edit the post or page with the custom fields assigned to it.
  2. In the Language box, select the WordPress Editor. Confirm that you want to use the editor to translate this post content.
Selecting to translate the page with the WordPress Editor
  1. Click the plus icon next to the secondary language you want to translate your page into.
  2. Manually enter your page title, description, and replace the original custom field content with your translations. Then, click the Publish button.
Adding the secondary language field values in the WordPress editor

If you’re using Repeater or Flexible Content fields, and want to have a different field order in your secondary language:

  1. Edit the post in your default language. 
  2. In the ACFML Synchronise Translations section at the bottom of the page, uncheck the option to keep repeater and flexible sub-fields in the same order.
  3. Update the page.
Disabling the option to keep the field order in sync across languages