Adding languages and setting the default

Adding a language is one setting and a great deal of work. Worth understanding the second part first.

Adding a language is one setting and a great deal of work. Worth understanding the second part first.

Add a language

1. Add it to your account's languages in Admin Center.
2. Enable it for the help centre in Knowledge.
3. Set the default language.
4. Translate your categories and sections.
5. Translate articles.

Step four is not optional

This is not a matter of appearance. Translate an article but not the section or category it sits in, and readers cannot view that article at all, even though it is published. The work is done, the article is live, and nobody can reach it.

It is a small job and it is the one people skip, which is why a freshly translated help centre so often looks empty in the second language.

What else needs translating

More than the articles.

• Your theme's text. Headings, labels, the search prompt.
• Dynamic content in your notifications.
• Ticket forms and fields, which customers see on the request form.

A help centre in Dutch whose contact form is in English undoes much of the effort.

Pick the default carefully

The default is what a reader gets when their own language is unavailable. It should be the language most of your customers can read, which is not automatically the language your company works in.

Fewer languages, done properly

Two well-maintained languages beat four where three are half finished. Adding a language is a commitment to keep it current, and stale translations are worse than none because readers cannot tell they are stale.

See also

• How multilingual Help Centers work
• What happens to an untranslated article
• Creating and using dynamic content