Author 詩語

Assign a language to an existing content

Set the default language to the existing content
Edit the content to assign a language
Assign a language thanks to the Quick Edit
Assign a language thanks to the Bulk Action

Note: If you change the language of some content already translated in other languages, you will loose the link with the translations in other languages.
1. Set the default language to the existing content

The default language is indicated by the star icon in the languages list table. If there is some content (whatever it is posts, pages, media, categories…) without language assigned, a message appears above the languages list table. Click on the link 「You can set them all to the default language」 to assign the default language to all your existing content without language. A flag icon is now displayed in the list tables for the pages, posts, taxonomies, media in the default language column.

2. Edit the content to assign a language
Edit your content (post, page, category, or tag…) Then thanks to the Polylang』s language metabox,  choose the relevant language and save your changes.

3. Assign a language thanks to the Quick Edit
In the Quick Edit option you have the possibility to choose your language for a content.

4. Assign a language thanks to the Bulk Action.
The Bulk Action allows you to assign a language to several posts or pages at once.

6 – Translating pages, posts, categories and tags

It is very important to set the language for all existing posts, pages, categories and tags otherwise they won』t be displayed on frontend.
Usually, you will define the language when editing your page. This is done by accessing a plugin in the block editor. See the first screenshot showing the button to access it. In the classic editor, the languages metabox is directly accessible on the side of the screen. See the second screenshot.

Let』s create a page in 4 languages:
Go to Pages > Add New
❶ Choose the language in the dropdown list.
❷ You can choose, thanks to the autocomplete input field, an already existing page as translation. The  will then turn in a .
❸ You can create a new translation by clicking on the  icon.
❹ Clicking on the  icon allows you to edit the translation.
The operation for posts, custom post types, categories and tags is exactly the same.
Below is how your pages are displayed in the Pages list table:
 

❺ The flag icon means that this page is in this language. Clicking on it will edit the page.
❻ Clicking on a  icon allows you to add a new translation.
❼ The  icon means that a translation exists. Clicking on it allows you to edit the translation.
It is not mandatory to translate all the content.
❽ You can filter the content by language (posts, pages, media, categories, tags, comments, string translations). This choice is persistent (kept even when you log out) and also impacts the default language when creating a new content.

How to renew a license key?

You will receive an email about one month before the license key expires. Clicking on the link provided in this email directs you to the checkout page with pre-filled information for the renewal.
It is also possible to renew from you Account page > license keys tab. Click on 「Extend license」 and you will be redirected to the checkout page with pre-filled information for the renewal.

NB: If you purchased the Polylang Business Pack, you received 3 license keys, one for Polylang Pro, one for Polylang for WooCommerce and one for the Polylang Business Pack. Only the license of the Polylang Business Pack must be renewed (the other two will be automatically renewed at the same time). This will allow you to continue to take profit of the discount associated to the bundle.

Duplicating content across post translations

Create some content
Activate the 『Duplicate content』 feature
The resulting duplicated content

We are going to walk through the 『Duplicate content』 feature available in Polylang Pro.
This feature duplicates the title, the content (text, media, gallery) and the excerpt. The example shown below is for Posts but the duplication works the same way for pages and custom post types.
Note: other types of content (taxonomies, featured image, custom fields, page order and template…) are automatically copied whether this option is activated or not.
1. Create some content
Let』s say that you have created a post 『Paris』 with some media (here a gallery).

2. Activate the 『Duplicate content』 option
Activate the duplication feature by clicking on the  icon in the Languages metabox. The icon will turn to blue (depending on your admin theme). This choice is persistent, meaning that the content duplication is now activated for all posts of this post type. You can de-activate the feature by clicking on the same icon again.

Click on the  icon to generate the English post translation.
3. The resulting duplicated content
As you can see below, Polylang has automatically copied all the content from the French post  into the English post translation. You can choose to modify or not this content.

The title, the text of the post content and the excerpt are duplicated. Regarding the media included in the post content, Polylang brings the translations from the Media Library. If these translations don』t exist yet, they are automatically created during the duplication operation. The same for the taxonomy terms. You still have to translate the media titles, captions and alternative texts if needed.

If you don』t need to translate all your media, we recommend that you deactivate the 『Automatically create all translations at upload』 option to create the media translations only when needed, using the 『Duplicate content』 feature.

7 – Define your home page as a static page

Go to Settings > Reading

It is mandatory to translate the static front page in all languages. If you choose a page not translated in all languages, you will get an error message and your choice will not be validated.
Choose one of the page you have just created (the language doesn』t matter). This 「Front page」 option gives you the access to a new option under Languages > Settings > URL modifications:

If you check this option, your Home page url will look like:
• http://www.yoursite.com/en/
And the other one below will not exist anymore (it will send an error 404):
• http://www.yoursite.com/en/home-in-english/

1 – Installation

First installation
To install Polylang, follow the usual steps to install a plugin from the wordpress.org repository.
To install Polylang Pro,

Download polylang-pro.zip by following the link in your purchase receipt or from your account > Downloads tab.
In your WordPress Dashboard, go to the plugins list table and click on 「Add New」
Click on 「Upload plugin」 and select the polylang-pro.zip file you previously downloaded
Activate Polylang Pro

Polylang setup wizard
When you are installing Polylang or Polyang Pro the first time, the setup wizard is automatically started. The goal is to help you get started more easily with Polylang by configuring the main features.
Migrating from Polylang to Polylang Pro
You can』t activate both versions of Polylang at the same time. Activating Polylang Pro will automatically deactivate Polylang. The migration is seamless, because both plugins are sharing the same data.
Removing Polylang after Polylang Pro activation
You can keep both versions on your hard disk, but you may want to save some space and delete Polylang before installing Polylang Pro. Here is how to proceed without loosing your data. If you do not feel comfortable with WordPress administration, it may be safer to make a database backup before proceeding.

Go to the plugins list table and de-activate Polylang
Click on the red delete link and confirm the deletion
Go back to the plugins list table and click on 「Add New」
Click on 「Upload plugin」 and select the polylang-pro.zip file you previously downloaded
Activate Polylang Pro

Synchronized posts

This feature, available only in Polylang Pro, allows you to have a post (or page) appear the same in several languages and to propagate a modification across the translations. This is especially useful for multiregional websites. Everything is synchronized (title, content, taxonomy terms, custom fields…) whatever the choices made in the Polylang synchronization settings.
You can activate the synchronization by clicking on the  icon in the Languages metabox. The icon will turn to blue (depending on your admin theme). This choice means that the post synchronization is now activated for a specific post and a specific set of languages. Saving the post propagates your modifications across the 「translations」. The post in the other language is automatically created if it does not exist yet.
In the picture below, the English (UK) and English (US) posts are synchronized, while the French post is independently translated. You can deactivate the synchronization by clicking on the same icon again.

 
The feature is compatible with translated taxonomies. It means that two synchronized posts could display different taxonomy terms if these terms are translations of each other. The feature is also compatible with the automatically translated gallery shortcode and with ACF Pro fields which are automatically translated (image, file, post object, gallery and relationship fields).
Let』s illustrate what happens with taxonomies and galleries. We have intentionally translated ❹ categories with different names in English (US) and in English (UK). We have also previously uploaded and translated ❷ two pictures, giving them different captions in English (US) and in English (UK). However, we want to keep the ❸ text the same between the two posts in English. The post』s synchronization is activated for ❶ English (US) and English (UK).

 
As you can see below, the English (US) post contains the same title and text as the English (UK) post. ❺ The gallery has been synchronized too. But since we chose to use different captions, the post displays English (US) captions instead of original English (UK) captions. Note that if you did not previously translated your media, Polylang will create them for you.
Polylang chose to use ❻ the categories in English (US). These categories must have been previously created as translations of the corresponding English (UK) categories. We chose a different name for the example, but you can of course use the same name and same slug for the translated categories.

Managing the license keys

You receive your license key in your purchase receipt. Alternatively, it is also available in your Account > License keys tab.
If you skipped the setup wizard you need to register your license key by going in Languages > Settings > License keys module.

Enter the license key in the field as in the example shown below and then click on 『Save changes』.

Now the license key is associated to your site. During one year, you will be able to receive updates in your WordPress dashboard for Polylang Pro and/or Polylang for WooCommerce (like it is done for wordpress.org plugins). You will need to renew your license to get updates after one year.
NB: If you purchased the Polylang Business Pack, you received 3 license keys, one for Polylang Pro, one for Polylang for WooCommerce and one for the Polylang Business Pack. You must enter the first two license keys in Polylang settings to receive the plugins updates. The third one will be used only to renew your license.

2 – Setup wizard

Setup wizard launch
When activating Polylang or Polylang Pro for the first time, the setup wizard is automatically launched with all the necessary steps to configure more easily a multilingual website.
You should have to follow each step one by one until the 「Ready!」 step at the end of the setup wizard.
Some additionals steps are added when activating Polylang for WooCommerce. For a full walkthrough of these steps, please read through the Polylang for WooCommerce installation documentation.
Note that if you skipped the setup wizard, you can run the setup wizard by going to Languages > Setup or by clicking on the button which should still be visible on all the most admin pages.

Please note that the setup wizard notice will be dismissed automatically when you come into the setup wizard 「Ready!」 step.
You will have to go through these steps below:

Licenses
Languages
Media
Content
Homepage
Ready!

Licenses step
If you have launched the setup wizard from Polylang Pro, a new step is added at the beginning: Licenses step.
We recommend you to fill in your Polylang Pro license key in the corresponding field at this step to ensure you will be able to receive automatic updates.

Languages step
This step is surely one of the most important because without any language defined your multilingual website will not work correctly.
So you should define at least one language, chosen in a list of more than 90 predefined languages.

The first language you add become the default language of your multilingual website.
Before continuing to the next step you can of course add several languages in the list by using the 「Add new language」 button.

Note: the languages are really created when you click on the 「Continue」 button.
Media step
If you want to translate the media fields (title, alternative text, description…) you need to keep this option checked, you can read more info about it in our documentation.

Content step
If you are installing and activating Polylang on an existing website, then all the existing contents have no language assigned yet. It is important that each content has a language otherwise your content is not displayed on the front end.
The default language will be assigned to all the existing content by default. However in this step you should be able to select another language that you added before at the languages step.

Homepage step
This step is only displayed when a static homepage has been defined in Settings > Reading. As it is mandatory to translate it in all languages, this step will create new pages linked to your existing homepage in all your languages.
If you are using Polylang, these newly created pages will be empty. With Polylang Pro your existing homepage will be duplicated in your other languages (with the exact same content, title and excerpt, untranslated).

Ready step
Congratulations! You have reached the last step of the setup wizard and you have correctly configured all that is absolutely required to make your multingual website work correctly.
You are now ready to manage and translate your contents in each language you have defined.
However, to get your website ready, there are still two steps you need to perform manually: add menus in each language, and add a language switcher to allow your visitors to select their preferred language. That is why you will find a button to directly access to our documentation from the setup wizard.

You can now quit the setup wizard by simply clicking the 「Return to the Dashboard」 button.

Duplicating content in bulk

Bulk translate posts with translated taxonomies
Bulk translate posts with untranslated taxonomies
Bulk translate products

We are going to walk through the bulk translate feature available in Polylang Pro. This tool gives you the possibility to copy ❶ or synchronize ❷ posts in bulk into other languages as shown below:

❶ The option 「Copy originals to selected languages」 allows to create translations in bulk into other languages. It copies all the post content such as the title, the content (text, media, gallery) and the excerpt into the selected languages.
❷ The option 「Synchronize originals with selected languages」 allows to synchronize in bulk the original posts into other languages. It means that the content of new translations will be synchronized to the original content. Indeed the translations as well as the original posts will have the  icon activated in the Languages metabox as explained in the synchronized posts documentation.
This tool works with posts, pages, media (except for the synchronization option) and custom post types such as WooCommerce products. As a reminder you need Polylang for WooCommerce to handle your products.
1. Bulk translate posts with translated taxonomies
The example shown below is for posts but the bulk translation tool works the same way for pages, media (except for the synchronization option), and custom post types such as products.
Let』s say that you decide to translate an English post in French. My English post has a translated category named 「Food」 and its French translation is named 「Restaurants」 as shown below:

Now to translate this English post in another language, you need to follow the steps below:
❶ select the checkbox corresponding to the post,
❷ then select the « Bulk translate » action, it will open the Bulk Translate metabox,
❸ then choose the language you want to translate to,
❹ select « Copy originals to selected languages » or « Synchronize originals with selected languages »,
❺ then hit the « submit » button.

After hitting the submit button, a success message is displayed ❻ and you obtain a new French translated post ❼ with the French corresponding category ❽ as shown here :

Note that if you select « Synchronize originals with selected languages » the synchronization will be activated for your new translation as explained in the 「Synchronized posts」 documentation.
2. Bulk translate posts with untranslated taxonomies
In the following example, you will see that if the translations of the categories don』t exist yet, Polylang creates them automatically on the fly. It works the same way with custom taxonomies such as WooCommerce product categories.
Let』s say that you decide to translate another English post with an untranslated taxonomy as shown below :

To translate this post in another language you need to proceed as explained in the previous example. After bulk translating your post, you will obtain a new French translated post with a new French category. Indeed Polylang has created the 「News」 French translated category on the fly as shown below. Note that it』s up to you to manually translate the title of this just created category.

The behavior described above is the same for the media, if the translation doesn』t exist, Polylang creates it automatically.
3. Bulk translate products
If you use Polylang for WooCommerce in addition to Polylang Pro, you will also be able to duplicate in bulk your products as here:

Note that if your products categories and your terms are not yet translated, Poylang also duplicates them automatically into the other languages.