Interface translation

Go back to the main Translation information page.

Main translation file

Download the PO file for your language from here. See here to get information about how to deal with PO files.

If a PO file for your language does not yet exist, then you will have to get an empty template file to start a new translation. You may also need to use the updated template file (mentioned below) to bring the PO file up to date with new strings introduced in the UI. The most straightforward way to obtain the ‘inkscape.pot’ template is to download it from here.

When you are done with your translation, submit your work.

Update strings

Using Bazaar, you can checkout the full project repository and generate the project template. Then, you have to follow some steps in order to generate the template:

1. ./autogen.sh
2. ./configure
3. Enter the ‘po’ directory: cd po
4. Generate the current PO template: intltool-update --pot

To make an absolutely up-to-date translation (in case the PO file in bzr is not up-to-date enough):

1. Update your local copy of Inkscape in the usual way: bzr pull
2. Merge your existing translations into the new POT file (inkscape.pot):
   msgmerge your_latest_PO_file inkscape.pot > new_PO_file

If you want to update all PO files in po/, cd there and run: make update-po

Windows installer

1. Get the file according to your language here. If there is not such a file, copy the ‘English.nsh’ file and rename it to ‘YourLanguage.nsh’.
2. Translate the strings in the file.
3. Change header information in ‘YourLanguage.nsh’ (language name, local ID, windows code page and authors list) to proper values.
4. Optionally, test your translation as described below.
5. Submit your work (specify whether you tested it or not).

Testing the translation

This part is optional but recommended.

1. Install NSIS.
2. Run the make -f Makefile.mingw dist command after successful compilation of Inkscape. This command prepares binary of Inkscape for installer creation.
3. Add the filename of your file to the ‘inkscape.nsi’ file (in the parent folder) in the ; Localization section (with other languages).
4. Right-click on the ‘inkscape.nsi’ file and choose ‘Compile NSIS Script’. The installer compilation will start.
5. When the installer is finished, run it to test your translations for the installer and the uninstaller.

Default template

To translate the default template:

• Modify the ‘default.svg’ file and save it as ‘default.xx.svg’ where ‘xx’ is the ISO code of your language. You will find the current template here.
• Modify your PO translation to use your localized default template. Look up for a ‘default.svg’ string and translate it accordingly to the file name of the localized template.
• To test your template, save it as well as the compiled PO file (.mo) to the proper location for your system and restart Inkscape. New documents should now be based on your localized template (this is valid if your system is properly set to your locale).
• Submit your work.

To translate the default template, you can use Inkscape as well as any UTF-8 encoding capable text editor.