What is the difference between translation and localization when it comes to a SharePoint site?

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PointFire people talk about the difference quite a bit because there are two sets of products: one is called PointFire Translator which does translation of content and the other one is called PointFire 365 which does localization of the user interface.

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But what does that mean, really? 

When you look at a SharePoint screen, what fits into the category of translation and what fits into the category of localization?

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Localization

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Let’s start with localization first because the word used in the context of SharePoint is a little different  from other contexts.

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Normally localization means that a piece of software is adapted to work in one specific local language.  There’s another term called “globalization” of software or “internationalization” of software which means that the same piece of software will have its user interface adapt to multiple languages out of the box.

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That term has gone out of favor a bit because hardly anyone makes single-language software anymore. They make software that works in all languages, therefore the term localization is generally used now to mean software that works in multiple languages, which used to be called “globalization” or “internationalization.

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However, when it comes to SharePoint, localization actually means something a little bit different, because the SharePoint underlying software already works in multiple languages.  More accurately it is the localization of sites, which is mostly localization of the customized UI elements.

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So what localization means is having the user interface elements that are specific to a particular site work in different languages. These user interface elements, that support localization within a framework of what SharePoint allows, include such things as navigation of all types:- you want navigation to show up in the user’s language when the user has a particular language choice that you are supporting.  You also want the name and the description of the site to show up, to have different text in different languages. 

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The same thing happens for lists or libraries: 

• The names and the description of the lists or the library vary according to the user’s languages
• The column names, the column headers can vary according to the user’s language
• Content types are a little more complicated to make them work in different languages, but SharePoint has the ability to have different text in different languages such as names and descriptions of content type and site columns

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Things that people are less aware of:

• View names can be localized
• Custom actions. Those are things that appear on certain command bars. 

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All of these can be localized by the users.  SPFx webparts and extensions can be localized as well, but that’s done by a programmer, not s sharePoint site owner.  By the way, if you want to easily localize SPFx components, why not try the free open source PointFire Localizer?

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Getting back to the UI, there are a number of these user interface elements that SharePoint already provides localization for and that each site administrator has the ability to add some more user interface elements such as columns, lists, sites and to give them a name. They also have the ability to give them a name in several different languages.  All of that is handled by a mechanism in SharePoint called the Multilingual User Interface.

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There are other bits and pieces of SharePoint that are multilingual: term sets, such as what is used in managed metadata. There are, in some cases, classic web parts that are localizable such as classic page titles, even classic content editor webparts. 

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So, localization means the ability to populate the multilingual user interface with text that will vary according to the user’s language.  For instance their navigation menu, whatever type of navigation menu there is, will show up in their language. Their lists and their libraries will have titles and column names that are in their own language.

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Translation

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Translation on the other hand, applies to content. And content is all of the items within lists and libraries. That can be pages that are in page libraries, or documents that are in document libraries, or it can be list items that are in lists.

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Translation means creating a new copy of that item in the other language.  So if you have an original in English and you want to translate and have a French version and a Dutch version, then you will have three pages: one in English, one in French and one in Dutch.

Same thing if you want to translate a document, you will end up with three documents.

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This is very different from the way that localization works. With localization you don’t create new user interface elements; they have the ability to show you different text in different languages.

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Pages, documents and list items by and large don’t have that ability and therefore you do some duplication when you translate.

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PointFire Translator Express can translate all of these things. It can take those duplicate items and fill them with the text in the target language and any translatable metadata will be in the other language.

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In conclusion

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Whether you want translation or localization, you have the choice with PointFire products and you also have the option to just translate the content or only localize the user interface.

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