Duplicate Woocommerce products in a new language with independent edits

This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.

Problem:
The client is using WPML 4.6.12 and WooCommerce Multilingual & Multicurrency 5.3.6 on WordPress 6.6.1 and wants to create English versions of your 500 Italian WooCommerce products. They need these English pages to be editable independently in terms of text, images, and prices, while still linked as translations to the Italian versions.
Solution:
First, ensure you have a backup of your site. Temporarily deactivate the WooCommerce Multilingual plugin to edit the products in the secondary language. For translating products, we recommend using the WPML Advanced or Classic Editor as manual translation might not sync correctly, especially with variable products. For more details on using these editors, visit:

To manage media files in translations, refer to the WPML Media Translation guide at WPML Media Translation. If you need to unlink a translation from the original, this must be done manually as explained here: How to disconnect translations.

If this solution does not apply to your case, or if it seems outdated, please check related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verify the version of the permanent fix, and confirm that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. We highly recommend opening a new support ticket for further assistance at WPML support forum.

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Tagged: Custom Work

This topic contains 3 replies, has 2 voices.

Last updated by Bigul 1 month, 3 weeks ago.

Assisted by: Bigul.

Author	Posts
September 25, 2024 at 7:13 pm #16222341
francescoA-35	Contesto del problema: Hi, I'm using WPML 4.6.12 and WooCommerce Multilingual & Multicurrency 5.3.6 on WordPress 6.6.1. I have 500 WooCommerce products in Italian and I want to create their respective pages in English as quickly as possible. I would like the new English product pages to already have the same content as the Italian products, including texts and images, as if they were duplicates, but then I would like to manually edit each English product, being able to modify the texts, images, and price separately from the original Italian product. However, I would like the respective English and Italian products to maintain a link, indicating that one is the translation of the other, so that it is possible to switch the language on the frontend, but they should be editable separately. Sintomi: I tried duplicating the products from Translation Management, but the duplicated English products do not allow editing of images and prices. Or rather, the images can be modified, but when the page is saved, the changes are not saved, and the original image reappears. The price cannot be modified at all. Domande: How can I create English product pages that are duplicates of the Italian products but allow independent edits? Why are the changes to images not being saved when I edit the duplicated English products? Why can't I modify the price of the duplicated English products?
September 26, 2024 at 9:54 am #16224164
Bigul Supporter Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)	Hello, Welcome to the WPML support forum. I will do my best to help you to resolve the issue. We are officially not recommending the manual translation of WooCommerce Product posts, because it has a lot of custom fields, especially when having variable products. It may result in a wrong sync of price, qty, etc.. Please take a site backup and deactivate the WooCommerce Multilingual plugin. Then check you can modify the products in the secondary language. -- Thanks! Bigul
September 26, 2024 at 10:23 am #16224425
francescoA-35	Hi Bigul, thanks for your reply. So I duplicate the products, deactivate the plugin, edit the duplicated products, and then reactivate it? Then, every time I want to modify either the duplicated product or the original one separately, I need to deactivate the plugin again? Isn't there a way to duplicate the products and then unlink them from the main product, while keeping the fact that one is the translation of the other? Thanks.
September 26, 2024 at 1:35 pm #16225548
Bigul Supporter Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)	Hello, Thank you for the updates. Yes, we can't update the products in a secondary language manually (from the WordPress Editor screen) when the WooCommerce Multilingual plugin is active. But you can translate it using WPML Advanced or Classic Editor (the officially recommended solution). Please refer to the following articles for more details. https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/advanced-translation-editor/ https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/using-the-translation-editor/ https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/using-the-translation-editor/switching-from-classic-to-advanced-translation-editor/ You can translate the media files (for example feature images) using WPML Media Translation - https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/media-translation/ Also, we can only unlink a translation from the original post manually. There is no bulk option for that. Becuase the translation relationships are stored in multiple tables - https://wpml.org/faq/how-to-disconnect-translations-from-the-default-language-page-or-post/ -- Thanks! Bigul