Content blocks in translated articles

Content blocks do not have the same multi-language support as articles. A translated block is a separate block with no link back to the original.

Content blocks do not have the same multi-language support as articles. Where an article holds its translations inside one article, a translated content block is a standalone content block that carries no reference to the original. Expecting otherwise is the single thing that goes wrong here, so it is worth settling before you plan any of the work.

What this means in practice

So there is no language to add to an existing block, and no automatic switch when a reader arrives in another language. There are two blocks.

Use a block in a translated article

1. Create a content block containing the passage in the target language.
2. Open the translation of the article you want it in.
3. Insert that language's block at the right place.
4. Repeat for every translated article that needs the passage.

The blocks stay reusable within their own language, which is where the saving is: one Dutch block can serve forty Dutch articles.

One block can cover close language variants

Variants that are near enough to share wording can share a block. Zendesk's own example is a French system requirements block used in both French and French Canadian articles. Technical passages, requirements and product names are usually where this holds.

Make the language visible in the name

Every language ends up in one flat list, and the name is what people search on. We recommend leading with the language, because a writer picking from that list has no other way to tell two versions of the same passage apart, and inserting the wrong one produces a single paragraph in the wrong language in the middle of an otherwise correct article.

Plan for the maintenance, because nothing tracks it

Editing the English block has no connection whatsoever to the Dutch one. Nothing marks the other languages as outdated, because as far as the product is concerned they are unrelated blocks that happen to say similar things.

Where a change is substantive, update every language version in the same sitting. That is the whole discipline, and there is no feature that will remind you.

See also

• Creating and inserting a content block
• Translating an article
• What happens to an untranslated article