Multi-language support

Overview

Multi-language support lets an admin run one collection in many languages. Each language has its own translations for interface terms, content labels, documents, and pages.

Access and permissions

Most multi-language settings are admin-only. The table lists who can do each action.

Action	Admin	Editor	Other roles
Install, uninstall, set default, or reset a language	✓	✗	✗
Edit term translations under Settings > Translations	✓	✗	✗
Import a translation CSV	✓	✗	✗
Turn on Live Translate	✓	✗	✗
Save an edit made through Live Translate	✓	✗	✗
Read translated content	✓	✓	✓

Live Translate is admin-only. Only an admin sees the toggle and can save an edit.

Languages

The Settings > Languages page lists every installed language and controls which ones a collection uses. Each row holds these actions.

Action	Description
Install Language(s)	Opens a list of available languages and adds the selected ones. Already-installed languages don't appear in the list.
Set as default	Marks the language as the collection default. The button is disabled on the row that's already default.
Reset	Re-imports the bundled interface translations for that language, when a bundled set exists.
Uninstall	Removes the language after a confirmation prompt.

A language marked with * in the install list ships with bundled interface translations. Uwazi loads those translations on install.

Default language

The collection has one default language, set when it's first built. The default language is the source for these actions:

• New languages copy their entity records and translations from the default language.
• A new term starts with the default-language value as a placeholder in every language.
• New pages copy their content from the default language.

warning

You can't uninstall the default language. Set another language as the default first.

Installing a language

When you install a language, Uwazi copies every term and entity record from the default language into the new one. The copy runs in the background. It also rebuilds the search index and document thumbnails. The language stays in an installing state until the copy finishes.

• Installing an already-installed language has no effect.
• You can't uninstall a language while it's still installing.
• Re-installing a language never overwrites translations that already exist.

Uninstalling a language

Uninstalling removes the language from settings and deletes its translations and per-language entity records.

warning

Uninstalling a language deletes all its entity records and translations for good.

Bundled interface languages

Uwazi bundles interface translations for 11 languages: Arabic, Greek, English, Spanish, French, Korean, Burmese, Russian, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian. Other languages install with the default-language values as placeholders until an admin translates them.

Right-to-left languages

Uwazi shows 10 languages right-to-left: Arabic, Maldivian, Hausa, Hebrew, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Pashto, Persian, Urdu, and Yiddish. Uwazi sets the right-to-left layout on its own. No other behaviour differs.

Live translate

Live Translate edits interface text in place, without leaving the current page. An admin turns it on from the language menu.

State	Behaviour
On	Every interface string becomes clickable. Selecting a string opens an editor with one field per installed language.
Off	The default state. Interface strings render as normal text.

When an admin saves a Live Translate edit, the change appears in every open session at once, with no reload.

Translations

The Settings > Translations page groups every translatable term into two tables.

Table	Holds
System translations	Interface strings, sidebar filter labels, and navigation menu links.
Content translations	Template and property labels, thesaurus names and values, and relationship type labels.

Each row opens an editor that lists every term in that group, with one input per installed language. The editor shows a per-term status of translated, untranslated, or default language. An Untranslated Terms toggle filters the list to terms that still hold the default-language value.

Content translation sources

Uwazi creates content translations when you save the parent object. Each new term starts with its label as the placeholder value in every language.

Content type	When translations are created	Where you edit them
Templates	Saving a template creates entries for its name and property labels.	Content translations
Thesauri	Saving a thesaurus creates entries for its name and value labels.	Content translations
Relationship types	Saving a relationship type creates entries for its name and property labels.	Content translations
Filters	Saving the library filters configuration creates entries for filter labels.	System translations
Menu	Saving the navigation links creates entries for menu labels.	System translations

Thesaurus value renames

Renaming a thesaurus value updates the value in the default language only. Every other language keeps its current translated value. This way, a label change keeps the human translations.

Auto-translated metadata values

Uwazi shows the translated label for some property types in the current language. Other property types show their stored value unchanged.

Property types	Display in entity metadata
Select, Multiple select, Relationship	Shows the translated label or related entity title for the current language.
Text, Markdown, and all other types	Shows the stored value unchanged, with no translation.

Constraints

• A translation group can't hold duplicate term keys.
• You can't delete a relationship type while it's still in use.
• Importing a translation CSV updates existing terms only and skips unknown terms.

Bulk interface term import

The Import button on a System translation editor uploads a CSV that sets one language's values for that group. The CSV uses two columns.

Column	Holds
Key	The term identifier.
Language name	The translated value, under a header equal to the language's English name, such as French.

The bundled interface translations use the same two-column format. The Reset action on the Languages page re-imports them.

• The CSV covers one language per file.
• The import updates existing terms only. It adds no new terms.
• A reset or re-import fails when no bundled set exists for that language.

Multi-language documents

An entity has one record per installed language. The records share one identity across languages. A document you upload to an entity carries a detected text language. Uwazi sets it from the document's content.

Uwazi picks the document to show on an entity in this order:

1. A document whose detected language matches the entity language.
2. A document whose detected language matches the default collection language.
3. The first document on the entity.

So an entity with one English and one French document shows the matching document in each language view.

• Uwazi detects the language on its own. There's no manual language choice at upload.
• Detection can be wrong on short documents. A wrong result shows a document in the wrong language view.

Search indexing

Uwazi indexes full text in a separate field per language. Each language field uses its own text search rules. A language with no rules of its own shares a common field. The detected document language decides which field gets the text.

Pages

A page holds separate content for each installed language. This covers its title, body, script, and CSS. The page editor shows one tab per installed language, labelled by the language code. Selecting a tab switches the editor to that language's content.

Operation	Behaviour
Add a language to pages	A new installed language copies its page content from the default language.
Edit a language tab	Each tab holds an independent title, body, script, and CSS.
Build a release	Saves a snapshot of every language version. Requires a non-empty release message.

Constraints

• A page must keep at least one language. You can't remove its last language version.
• Building a release needs a release message. An empty message fails.
• Applying a release to the draft overwrites the draft content and keeps only installed languages.

Validation and errors

The table lists the conditions that block a multi-language action.

Condition	Result
Uninstalling the default language	The action fails. Set another default first.
Uninstalling a language that's still installing	The action fails until the install finishes.
A translation group holds duplicate term keys	The save fails.
Deleting a relationship type that's still in use	The action fails.
A translation CSV holds unknown terms	Uwazi skips them and updates only existing terms.
Resetting a language with no bundled translations	The reset fails.
Removing the last language version of a page	The action fails.
Building a page release with an empty message	The action fails.