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How to Prepare the Site to Run Multilingual in WordPress

Before you translate your Toolset-powered site, there are some initial steps that you need to take care of first.

On this page:

Installing the necessary plugins

To translate sites built with Toolset, make sure you have a Multilingual CMS or Multilingual Agency account and install both the WPML Multilingual CMS and WPML String Translation plugins.

From your WPML Account’s download page,  you’ll find the OTGS Installer—a lightweight plugin that helps you download and install all the required WPML components. 

After installing WPML, a quick setup wizard will guide you through selecting your site’s languages, choosing who will handle translations, and other basic settings.Check out WPML’s getting started guide for more information.

Making your custom content translatable

To be able to translate your Toolset site, you need to make all the relevant custom content translatable. You can do this from the WPML → Settings page:

Make Custom Post Types Translatable

Make Custom Fields Translatable

Make Custom Taxonomies Translatable

In the Post Types Translation section, select all the custom post types you want to translate and set them to Translatable  – only show translated items.

In the Custom Fields Translation section, look for  custom fields with the wpcf- prefix. Then, choose one of the four translation options for each field.

In the Taxonomies Translation section, select the translation options you want to use for your custom taxonomies.

Translating your custom content

Once your custom content is set as translatable, you can translate it from WPML → Translation Management. You’ll learn more about translating content in the course about translating content in WordPress, but here’s a quick overview:

  • Translating Custom Post Types

From the Translation Management Dashboard, select the custom posts you want to translate and send them for translation.

  • Translating Custom Fields

There’s no need to translate custom fields separately. When you send a post or page that uses custom fields for translation, WPML will include the attached fields.

  • Translating Custom Taxonomies

Custom taxonomies are translated along with the custom post type they belong to. Just send the main content for translation from the Translation Management Dashboard.

Translating slugs of custom post types

After making your custom post type translatable (see previous section), you can translate its slug. WPML allows you to translate the whole URL structure, including the slugs of your custom post types.

For example, a real estate site might feature a custom post type called “Houses”. The slug of a post type is its singular name or “house” in this example. This means that the URL structure for this post type will be the following:

  • www.example.com/house/

In the Spanish version of our site, we can translate this so that the URL structure for this post type viewed in Spanish will be:

  • www.example.com/es/casa/

After making your custom post type translatable (see previous section), you can translate its slug. To do this, follow the instructions provided on the WPML page about translating page slugs.

Translating custom post type slugs with WPML
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