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Translate divi theme with wpml

Introduction

Divi is a smart and flexible multipurpose theme, it comes with an easy to use page builder and a handful of pre-made layouts that will help you create the website that suits your needs.If you are willing to have a multilingual site, Divi’s integration with WPML will  allow you to translate all the theme elements effortlessly.

What you will need

  • The Divi theme (version 2.7.3 or above).
  • A recent version of WPML (version 3.3.7 or above), including the String Translation, Translation Management and Media translation add-ons.

Essential resources

Content

Getting started

  • Install the Divi theme and activate it.
  • Install and activate the core WPML plugins (WPML Multilingual CMS, WPML String Translation, WPML Translation Management) first, followed by other WPML plugins that may depend on them.
  • Set up WPML from WPML > Languages. See our WPML Getting Started Guide for complete reference. The initial, simple three-step setup is self-explanatory, asking you to choose your default language, a set of active languages, and a language selector. (For starters, choose the footer language selector; you can change this later.)
  • For this tutorial we will be creating our home page using the predefined layouts that comes with Divi.
  1. On your WordPress dashboard click on “Pages”, then “ Add New”.
  2. Click on “Use The Divi Builder” button.
  3. Click on “Load From Library”.

Load from library

  1. Scroll down and click on the “Load” button next to  “Homepage Corporate” , you can choose any layout you prefer.

Choose your predefined layout

  1. Now, You can click on the preview link to see your home page.

Translating Divi home page

https://youtu.be/euR6YI-ROiU

  1. Navigate to “Pages” > “All Pages” on your WordPress dashboard, You will see columns for each active language, with a Pen icon icon (for ‘edit translation’) or a Plus icon icon (for ‘add translation’) next to each page. Go ahead and Click on the Plus icon icon to edit the translation for the home page that you have created.

Home page translation-1

  1. Click on the “Copy content from English” found on the language meta-box on the right, then click on “Use the Divi Builder ” button.

Home page translation-2

  1. Add the translated text to the page title and the different theme elements and click on the “Save” button.

Home page translation-3

Note that these steps apply to any page created using the “Divi Page Builder”.

Translating pages, posts, post categories, custom post types and custom taxonomies

In a similar manner, you can translate all other pages and posts, including the custom post types “Projects”. For example, here is how to translate a post :

  1. Navigate to “Posts” and click on the Plus icon icon.
  2. Click on the “Copy content from” button to load your default language post content.
  3. Add the translated content.

Post translation

Translating post categories

  1. Navigating to Posts > Categories, as an example we will create a category and name it “En-Category” and click on the “Add New Category” button.
  2. Click on the category that we have created.

Catagory translation

  1. Click on the “add” link to add the translation of the category.

add tranalation to catagory

  1. Fill the Name, Slug and Description fields with the category translation and click on the “Add New Category” button.

add translated content to the catagory

Translating custom post types (Project) and Project categories

The custom post type “Project” can be translated using the same steps followed to translate the regular post. Also, the post project categories can be translated in the same manner as we translated the regular post categories.

Translating custom taxonomies

  1. Go to WPML > Taxonomy Translation
  2. Select “Project Categories” from the “Select the taxonomy to translate” drop-down menu.
  3. Click on the “translate” button to add the custom taxonomy translation by filling the required fields and then click on the “OK” button, as shown below.

Taxonomy Translation

Translating Divi’s theme text and other strings on your website

To translate the theme strings, you will need to scan it for strings. This will register the strings for translation on the string translation screen. (Read more about Theme and Plugin Localization.)

This can be done by following the steps below:

  1. Go to WPML > Theme and plugin localization.
  2. Choose the “Translate the theme and plugins using WPML’s String Translation” option and click the “Save” button.

Translate the theme and plugins using WPML's String Translation

  1. Click on the “Scan the theme for strings” button. This will register the theme texts for translation on the string translation screen. Check the illustration below.

Scan theme for strings

  1. Now you can navigate to WPML >> String translation

Strings can be filtered by:

  • Select which strings to display (Translation complete, Translation needed, Waiting for translator).
  • Select a specific text domain.
  • Search for a specific string by typing it in the “search for:” field and click the “search” button.
  1. Click on “translations” and add your translated text. Then choose the “Translation is complete” option and click “Save.”

String translation

Note that translating the theme options can be achieved by choosing “admin_texts_et_divi” string domain on the string translation screen.

Translating Divi’s theme options

Theme options can be translated using the string translation page. For example if we want to translate the “Homepage custom title” available in Divi’s SEO theme options.

theme options translation 1

Navigate to the “String Translation” page and choose the string domain “admin_texts_theme_Divi”, find your Homepage custom title and add the translated content then click on the “Save” button as shown below.

theme options translation 2

Translating Divi’s custom layouts

With Divi you can create your own layouts and save them to be used in different pages or posts. Check Divi’s documentation of Saving and Loading Custom Layouts. These layouts can be translated using WPML, you can even have different layouts for your languages. Follow these steps to create, save, translate and load your custom layouts:

  1. On your WordPress dashboard navigate to Divi > Divi Library and click on the add new button. Ensure that the main language switched in your WordPress dashboard is set to be your default language.
  2. Fill in the layout name and choose the “Template Type:” to be “Layout”

English Layout

  1. Create the layout structure that you prefer, in our example we will add a text module to the left and an image module to the right, then click on the “Publish” button.

Crearting English layout

  1. Click on the Plus icon icon in the language meta-box found on the right to create the translated layout.

Add translation to the layout

  1. Add the title for the translated layout, in our case it will be “Spanish Layout”. You can choose a different layout structure. For example we set the text module to be on the right and the image module to be on the left. You can choose any layout you prefer then click on the “Publish” button.

Spanish Layout

When loading these layout templates to your pages, you can load the English layout to your English pages and the Spanish Layouts to the spanish pages. This can be done by:

  1. adding a new page > Click on the “Use Divi Builder” button > Click in “Load From Library” tab.
  2. Click on the the “Add From Library” tab and click on the “Load” button to load the English layout.

Load English Layout template

The same steps can be followed to add the translated layout to your secondary language(s) page(s).

Translating Divi’s menus

With WPML, you can easily synchronize between your languages’ menus. For more information, please check our full menus translation tutorial.

Getting help

If you need help using WPML with Divi  theme, please navigate to our technical forum.

Before posting your concerns, we recommend that you review the following:

  1. Ensure you have the latest versions of the theme and WPML plugins, and that they are all activated. These include WPML Multilingual CMS, WPML String Translation, and WPML Translation Management.
  2. Confirm that your issue does not arise when the WPML plugins are deactivated, but does arise when only the core WPML plugins are activated. In other words, ensure that it is an issue of compatibility of Divi with WPML. Otherwise, Divi’s support can offer better assistance.

Conclusion

Divi theme has many features, with WPML integration you will be able to easily translate all its different elements. The detailed instructions introduced in this tutorial will allow you to build your localized website smartly using Divi theme and WPML.

How can we make WPML better for you?

Share your thoughts and comments about our plugin, documentation, or videos by booking a Zoom call with Agnes, our Client Advocate. Your feedback matters and helps us improve.

Book a call with Agnes

9 Responses to “Build a multilingual site with the Divi theme”

  1. Hello, thanks for this great post, very useful for Divi users.
    Although I have one question. Why Divi theme is not in your theme compatibility list? I see a lot of themes from Elegant Themes but not Divi.

  2. Hi Benny,

    If I understand what you are asking correctly the question then the procedure is the same as described above – you duplicate the content and then change the logo in the Hebrew page to the one you need to use.

    • We share Benny’s question. The problem is not with pages, it’s with logo which does not exist in a page but as part of the header. It’s configured in the Divi settings panel.

      • I have just tested and you are right. I am opening a ticket for our compatibility team. we’ll fix and declare when it’s done. thanks!

      • I have fixed and updated the wpml-config file for Divi. Have tested on our servers and now it works. Because this takes time to update (via Cron) for everyone I suggest you test tomorrow. If it still does not work please open a support thread in our forums. and paste here the link to it – I’ll handle it quickly.

        Cheers!