PrestaShop Tips :: Translation in PrestaShop

Posted by Mark Thomas on in Hosting Tips

PrestaShop is a free, open source e-commerce solution. The software is published under the Open Software License (OSL). It is written in the PHP programming language with support for the MySQL database management system.

PrestaShop allows you to create users (referred to as employees) with translator’s profile, so that it can perform translation from the administration panel. Translator will have access to the contents that need to be translated, but not to private data (customers, suppliers, sales, expenses, etc).

Adding a new translator is pretty straightforward: navigate to ADMINISTRATION > Employees > Add new employee. When it creates a profile in PrestaShop (either logistician, translator or salesman) you can choose the language from the admin panel. Each user can also change their preferred language.

The more complex part comes when setting the new profiles access rights. This is done in ADMINISTRATION > Permissions.

This is the admin panel of a translator:

If you don’t want to give access to the translator, another option is exporting contents in a CSV file to send it to the translator. In this case, the translator could use their Computer-assisted translation tool. This can be done by accessing the database using phpMyAdmin, but this requires advanced knowledge.

Translation modules in PrestaShop

PrestaShop official marketplace sells modules under category International & Localization:

Machine translation. There are different modules that allow machine translation (Translate all, Google Translation, etc.). In my opinion, it is not advisable to use these modules, since in most cases translations do not make sense.
Edit translations from the frontend (Inline Translation module). It allows you to edit and make translations from the Front Office. Personally I prefer to edit the translations from the Back Office.
Translation modules that connect to online translation agencies. Some online translation agencies have developed specific modules to make easier the process of translation, such as TextMaster or Dixit.

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