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How to Use Translation Services in WPML

Dario
Updated
July 4, 2024

Learn how to connect your website and send content to leading professional translation services in partnership with WPML.

Why use a Translation Service?

Translation services are a reliable way to translate your website. Unlike individual contractors and part-time freelancers, translation services employ professional translators with hands-on experience. This guarantees a number of benefits: 

High-Quality Translations

Get translations that match your content’s voice and sound natural to native speakers

Industry Specialization

Work with translation services that specialize in your website’s niche and industry

Save Time & Effort

Attend to other important tasks while professionals translate your website

Translate with a WPML Partner

At WPML, we work with over 70+ leading professional translation services from around the world. Whether you run a small company page or a big corporate website, our partners specialize in dozens of industries, ensuring accurate translations for your specific niche. 

If your preferred translation service isn’t available, refer them to our Translation Hub page, where they can partner with WPML. Once they integrate with us, you’ll be able to send them content for translation. 

How to Use Translation Services in WPML

Using translation services in WPML is easy and secure. You can send content for translation directly from your WordPress admin, and external translators never have access to your website.

Here’s how the process works. 

1. Connect Your Website to a Translation Service

WPML offers two ways to connect your website to a translation service: during the setup wizard, or in the Translation Management → Translators tab. 

Connecting to a translation service in the setup wizard
Connecting to a translation service in the setup wizard
Connecting to a translation service in Translation Management
Connecting to a translation service in Translation Management

Once you select your preferred translation service, you need to authenticate it with an API token. For instructions on obtaining a token, check the documentation for your specific translation service in our translation service directory.

2. Hide Languages in Progress (Optional) 

WPML lets you temporarily hide all content in a specific language from your website. This ensures users don’t see translations in progress or partially translated areas of your website. 

To hide languages on your website, go to WPML → Languages and scroll to the Hide languages section. Select the languages you want to hide and save your preferences. 

Hiding content in specific languages
Hiding content in specific languages

3. Send Content for Translation

WPML lets you send all your website content to translation services. This includes pages, posts, custom posts, products, and more. 

To send content to a translation service: 

  1. Go to WPML → Translation Management. 
  2. Select the content you want to translate and add it to the Translation Basket.
selecting content for translation
Selecting content in Translation Management
  1. Next, switch to the Translation Basket tab and select your translation service. Click Send all items for translation to confirm. 
Sending content to a translation service

Remember that WPML doesn’t handle payments, so you need to pay your translation service directly. 

4. Receive Completed Translations

Once translations are ready, WPML automatically fetches them and publishes them to your website. Completed translations appear in the Translation Management dashboard with a green icon.

Completed translations in Translation Management
Completed translations in Translation Management

Handling Untranslated Texts

If you send content for translation, and some texts still appear untranslated, these texts are likely strings. 

To translate strings, go to WPML → Translation Management and scroll down to the Strings section. Select your texts and follow the same steps as explained above to send them to your translation service. 

How to Cancel Translations

To cancel translations, you need to contact your translation service directly. For specific cancellation instructions, check your translation service documentation in our translation service directory. 

Get Started with WPML

To use translation services with WPML, you need WPML’s Multilingual CMS or Multilingual Agency account. 

Visit our pricing page to choose your plan.