Interface translation

Go back to the main Translation information page.

Main translation file

See here to get information about how to deal with PO files.

Get the PO file for your language

Download the .po file for your language from here.

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 blow) 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.

Alternatively, you can checkout the full Bazaar project repository and generate the project template. Information on how to get the source tree can be found here. 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

Now that you have an empty PO template, you can start translating the messages.

Locale Testing

Before reporting that a locale doesn't work in Inkscape, you need to make sure that your system has that locale correctly set up. To do this, you need to generally find a way to run ‘locale-gen’ (under Debian/Ubuntu this is via dpkg-reconfigure locales). If you set both the LANG and LANGUAGE variables and check a regular tool, you should see the correct language for both the libc error (first line) and the tool error (second line):

LANG=es_MX LANGUAGE=es_MX ls -z
ls: opción inválida -- z
Pruebe `ls --help' para más información.

If it reports the regular C messages, your locale has not been correctly configured, and you'll need to find the right way to run ‘locale-gen’ for your distribution:

LANG=es_ES LANGUAGE=es_MX ls -z
ls: invalid option -- z
Try `ls --help' for more information.

Submit finished work

Upload your work via the Launchpad bug tracker. Report a new bug and attach your translated file to it. Don't forget to compress your file before uploading it.

Additionally, you may send a message to Inkscape's translators mailing list.

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 strings in the file.
3. Change header information in ‘YourLanguage.nsh’ file (language name, local ID, windows code page and authors list) to proper values.

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.
6. If the translation is tested successfully, submit it to the Launchpad bug tracker and mark as ‘Translation’.

If you submit your translation but haven't tested it yet, enter this information to the patch information. You will be contacted about its correctness.

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 it, save it as well as the compiled PO file (.mo) to the proper location 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).
• Upload your ‘default.xx.svg’ file to the bug tracker.

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