Learn how to translate any content on your website into more languages using WPML’s Translation Dashboard.
What is WPML’s Translation Dashboard?
WPML’s Translation Dashboard is the central hub for managing all your website’s translations from a single, unified interface. From here, you can choose what content to translate and how to translate it, as well as see what content you already translated.
Using the Translation Dashboard, you can translate any content on your website: pages, posts, custom posts, forms, products, templates, widgets, strings, and any other content coming from your plugins.
How can I Translate Content?
To translate any content with the Translation Dashboard, start by going to WPML → Translation Dashboard in the left WordPress admin panel. Then, follow the steps below to translate your content.
1. Select Content to Translate
- Scroll down to the section with content you want to translate (Pages, Posts, etc.) and click to expand it. This will reveal a table with three columns; Title, Languages (flag icons), and Date.
- To select content, click the checkbox to the left of your item. You can also select all items by clicking the checkbox in the table header.
- If you don’t see some content, use the filters under the section title to find it; use Filter by to search by title, and Taxonomy Term to filter by taxonomy (Categories, Tags, etc.). If you search for additional items, the previous ones stay selected.
- When done selecting items, scroll down to Step 2 to choose your translation method.
Additional Filters
Besides filters per individual section, you can also apply filters across all sections. The filters are available under Step 1, and include:
- Source Language (i.e., your original language)
- Translated to (i.e., target language)
- Status (Published, Scheduled, Pending, Private, Draft)
- Translation status (Translation complete, Needs updating, Not completed, Translation in progress)
2. Choose Translation Method
Step 2 includes a table where you can choose how to translate your selected content. The table includes 4 columns:
- Source language – the original language of your content
- Target language – the available languages you can translate into
- Words to translate – the total number of words that will be translated into this language
- Apply to all languages – a filter that applies a translation method across all languages
To choose a translation method, click the dropdown to the right of the language you want to translate into and choose your method. WPML includes 6 translation methods:
Translate Automatically
Use PTC, WPML’s own AI translation engine with human-quality translations and quality guarantee, to automatically translate your content. When selecting this translation method, a number of new elements will appear:
- Credits needed (table column) – shows the number of automatic translation credits required to translate your selected content per language.
- Summary (table row) – shows the total number of credits required to translate your content into all selected languages, along with an estimated cost in euros.
- Default translation engine (below table) – the translation engine WPML will use to translate your content. Besides PTC, WPML supports three other translation engines; DeepL, Google Translate, Microsoft Translator. To switch engines, click the Change link on the right of this section. Note that automatic translation using DeepL, Google and Microsoft doesn’t offer WPML’s quality guarantee.
- Review options (dropdown below table) – the option to review translations once WPML is done:
- Publish without review (Recommended with PTC)
- Wait for review (Recommended with DeepL, Google, and Microsoft)
- Publish and mark for review
Translate myself
Manually enter translations by yourself using WPML’s Advanced Translation Editor.
Assign a translator
Choose a user on your website with the “Translator” role to translate your content with the Advanced Translator Editor. Keep in mind that you first need to assign the Translator role to users to use this option – see WPML’s adding translators guide for more information.
When selecting this translation method, a number of new elements will appear:
- Choose a translator (dropdown) – lets you choose which user should translate the content. You can also choose First available to let users assign themselves (WPML sends a notification letting translators know a new job is available).
- Batch name and deadline (under table) – give your translation job a title (e.g., Homepage | en-fr) and a suggested deadline.
Assign a translation service
Choose an external translation service to translate your content. Keep in mind that you first need to connect your website to a translation service to use this option – see WPML’s translation services guide for more information.
Similarly to sending content to translators, you can also set a Batch name and Suggested deadline.
Duplicate
Show your original content in other languages without translating it. This option is useful when you don’t want to translate your content, but do want content to appear in other languages.
Do nothing
Don’t apply any translation methods for the selected language.
3. Start Translating
After selecting your translation method, the last step is clicking the Translate button. Once clicked, do NOT leave the page until the confirmation pop-up appears – this may take a few minutes. WPML intentionally slows down the sending pace to avoid overloading your site’s server.
If you’re translating automatically, stay on the page until translations are ready (you can see the progress at the top of the Translation Dashboard).
The next steps vary depending on your translation method:
- Translate Automatically – no further action needed, if you chose not to review translations. If you did choose to review translations, go to WPML → Translations to review your automatic translations.
- Translate myself – go to WPML → Translations and click the Translate button to start translating your content.
- Assign a translator – no further action needed. WPML will email your assigned translator and mark the translation as complete in Translation Dashboard once finished.
- Assign a translation service – log into your translation service account and pay for your translations. WPML will automatically transfer your content to the selected service, and fetch it back once translations are complete.
- Duplicate – no further action needed.
Translation Dashboard FAQ
Can I automatically translate content that’s already translated?
Yes, you can automatically translate content that’s already translated. When selecting content that already has translations, WPML will show a banner under the table in Step 2, asking whether you want to:
- Leave existing translations as they are
- Overwrite existing translations
To retranslate your content, choose the Overwrite existing translations option.
Where do I get credits for automatic translation?
If you have a Multilingual CMS or Multilingual Agency account, WPML gives you 90,000 and 180,000 free credits respectively, which are typically enough to translate medium-sized sites to 2 or 3 languages. You can get more credits in two ways:
- Buying prepaid credit packages on wpml.org and assigning them to your site(s).
- Signing up to pay-as-you-go from inside WordPress and paying for what you used at the end of each month.
The prepaid packages are ideal when you want to control your spend. Many agencies typically use this option when building sites for clients. The pay-as-you-go option gives you the lowest cost-per-word and the easiest management. It’s ideal for people who are paying for their own translation credits.
To learn how to get started with either method, see WPML’s translation credits guide.
How can I find missing strings in the Other texts (Strings) section?
If you can’t find some strings in the Other texts (Strings) section:
- Go to the Translation Dashboard, expand the Other texts (Strings) section, and at the top of the section, make sure Detect untranslated strings is set to Enabled.
- Next, visit the page with your untranslated strings on the front-end and switch to the language with your missing strings.
- As you view the page, WPML will automatically detect the untranslated strings and add them to the Other texts (Strings) section.
- Return to the Other texts (Strings) section and search for your strings again.
If you still can’t find your strings, see WPML’s string translation guide.
Why is the Translation Dashboard missing some of my content?
If the Translation Dashboard is missing some of your content, follow these troubleshooting steps:
- Verify there are no filters applied (under Step 1). If there’s any, click the Clear filters link on the right of the filter bar to remove them.
- Verify your custom post types are translatable; go to WPML → Settings, scroll down to Post Type Translation, and confirm your custom post types are set to Translatable.