Translation Profiles (Drupal 7)

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Last updated: Feb 29, 2024 by Kenny Teves
3 min read

With translation profiles, you can invest resources into translating high value content while machine translating low value content. Different translation profiles can be applied to each type of content. For example,

  • Professionally translate Menus and Field Labels.
  • Post-edit translations for Articles and Basic Pages.
  • Machine translate Customer Comments.

You can use a translation profile to choose how content should be

  • Uploaded to Enterprise for translation (manually or automatically).
  • Downloaded to Drupal when the translation is complete (manually or automatically).


Available Translation Profiles

The Enterprise module comes with three translation profiles.

  • Automatic (Upload & Download) – Automatically upload content to Enterprise for translation; automatically download translated content back to Drupal.
  • Manual (Upload & Download) – Manually select which content should be uploaded for translation; manually select which translations should be downloaded back to Drupal.
  • Disabled – Disable translation for a specific content type (e.g. customer comments).
     

If you would like to mix and match "automatic" and "manual" upload/download options, you can create your own translation profile.

For example, you may only want to translate a few select blog posts and then would like to load completed translations back to Drupal automatically. In this case, you could create a translation profile that uses a Manual upload and an Automatic download.
 

You can also use the settings in the translation profile to decide whether to translate URLs and to decide how node translations will be stored. (Explanation will follow).

Add a Translation Profile

To add a Translation Profile,

  1. Go to the Drupal admin menu. Roll over Translation > Settings.
  2. From the side menu, click Translation Profiles.
  3. Click +Add new profile

    (tick) Tip: To edit an existing profile, click the cog icon listed next to it.
     
  4. Using the check boxes and drop down menus, configure the following settings (explanation will follow) –

    Profile settings impacting all entities (new and existing)
    1. Profile Name – Choose a descriptive name for the new translation profile.
    2. Upload/Download – Choose how content will be uploaded and downloaded.
    3. URL Alias Translation – Choose whether the URL alias should be translated. 

      (tick) Tip: The translated page title can be used for the URL alias if desired      .

      Profile settings impacting only new nodes
    4. Translation Storage – Choose how each node’s translations should be organized when they are saved.
    5. Other Settings – If you are using the full translation management system, you may also select a default Workflow, Vault, and Project.

      (tick) Tip: The Workflow, Vault and Project drop-downs will only display when there is more than one value to select.
       
  5. Save your work.


Once it is saved, the new translation profile is complete and can be used to automate translations for any available content type.

(tick) Tip: Field collections use the translation profile of the parent content type they're attached to.


For more help configuring each item in the Translation Profile, please see the table below.

Translation Profile Details 

Profile settings impacting all entities (new and existing)

Upload Content Automatically

With this option selected, each time an edit is saved to the source node, that change is automatically uploaded to Enterprise for translation.

Download Translations Automatically

With this option selected, once the translation is complete, Drupal will automatically load the translated content back to your Drupal site.

(tick) Tip: The timing of when translations are auto-downloaded is controlled by the workflow rules in the  Enterprise Translation Management System. Add an HTTP callback rule to a workflow’s phase to initiate the auto-download.



URL Alias Translation


  • Don’t translate

The URL will not be translated.


Choose this option to have the translated URL display as the node ID (“node/nodeID”). The URL alias value entered on the source node will not be uploaded to the TMS.


  • Translate the URL alias

The URL will appear as a translatable segment in the translator workbench.


The translator can either translate the alias or to leave the URL in English, depending on your instructions.

  • Use the translated page title

This pastes in the translated page title as the alias.


If you would prefer not to allocate translator resources to translating each alias, but would still like URLs to appear in the native language, you can use this option. The URL alias value entered on the source node will not be uploaded to the TMS. Instead, the translated page title will be inserted as the alias when the translation is downloaded to Drupal.

Profile settings impacting only new nodes

Translation Storage


  • Field Translation
    (Recommended)*

All translations are stored in a single node (i.e. entity translation or field-level translation).


This is the more modern method and provides forward compatibility with Drupal 8.


This creates a new node for each language (i.e. content translation).


This is the classical method used in Drupal 6. A new node will be created for each translated version, which provides more flexibility but can be difficult to maintain.



Workflow, Project, Vault

If you are using the full translation management system, you can choose which workflow, project, and vault to apply to the Translation Profile.

* When should I use Field Translation vs. Node Translation?

Acquia has a detailed and informative blog post on this topic. Please see https://www.acquia.com/blog/how-make-your-drupal-website-multilingual. 

Next: Frequently Asked Questions

 


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Visit the Enterprise Support Center.