Multilingual content

Last updated November 5, 2012. Created by pixelite on September 14, 2011.
Edited by frederickjh, Kristen Pol, epoitras, simonep. Log in to edit this page.

The Multilingual content module, part of the Internationalization (i18n) package, provides extended multilingual options for nodes. These options help accommodate a variety of translation workflows by controlling how the language for nodes is set.

Figure 1

Node Options per Content Type

For each content type, the following Extended language options are available under the Multilingual Settings tab (Figure 2):

• Set current language as default for new content can be useful for content that is community-generated.
• Require language prevents users from creating 'Language neutral' nodes.
• Lock language prevents users from changing the language of a node after it's created.

Additionally, if the String translation module is enabled, the Multilingual content module will localize all content type configuration texts including content type names and submission guidelines. Content type descriptions are localized by the core Locale module.

Figure 2

Site-wide Settings for Node Translation

There are also site-wide settings provided to help streamline how multilingual content is created (Figure 3). The following settings are available at Configuration > Regional and language > Multilingual settings > Node options:

• Switch interface for translating switches the language of the user interface to the chosen language when a user translates a node. This is useful if users speak the language in which the translation is written. It means that after the node translation is saved, the language of the UI will match the language of the node.
• Hide content translation links will remove the language switcher links from appearing in nodes and teasers. This is useful if a language switcher block is enabled on the site.
• You can also select the default language for new nodes if the corresponding content type doesn't have language support. By default, it is set to be in the default language of the site, but this can be changed to be language neutral. This is a useful option when thinking about forward compatibility for adding multilingual support to these content types in the future.

Figure 3

Note that the Multilingual content module lives in the i18n_node directory in the Internationalization package. Don't confuse this module with the core Content translation module.