If manually translating 250 articles of your help center to 6 different (or more) languages is not an option for you, here is a quick guide on how to insert the free Google translate widget to your help center and providing a “good enough” automated translation.
Keep in mind that Google Translate widget does not cover the translation of search nor of the screenshots (obviously..).
You can check out what it looks like and how it works here: https://support.aodocs.com
Note:
The following steps are done from the newest version of the Guite Theme editor.
We are going to go it in 4 steps:
1. Insert the script to your Help Center |
2. Insert the button in the Guide Header |
3. Modify the look of the Button |
4. Modify the look of the Dropdown menu |
1. Insert the script in the Guide document_head.hbs
- Access your Guide admin interface
- Open your theme
- Access the templates
- Select the document_head.hbs
- Add the following code:
<!-- Load the Google Translate Widget -->
<script type="text/javascript">
function googleTranslateWidgetInit() {
new google.translate.TranslateElement({
pageLanguage: 'en',
includedLanguages: 'es,fr,it,ja,pt,en',
layout: google.translate.TranslateElement.InlineLayout.SIMPLE
}, 'google_translate_element');
}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="//translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js?cb=googleTranslateWidgetInit"></script>
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2. Insert the button in the Guide Header
Once this the script is added, the script will launch every time the page loads and adds the widget (we are not done yet). We are going to insert it in the Header of the Guide interface so that it is always visible to the users.
- Access your Guide admin interface
- Open your theme
- Access the templates
- Select the header.hbs
- Add the following code at the location in the header where you want the widget to be:
<div id="google_translate_element" class="dropdown"></div>
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In the standard Copenhagen theme it would look like this when added to the nav-wrapper:
<header class="header">
<div class="logo">
{{#link 'help_center'}}
<img src="{{logo_url}}" alt="{{t 'logo'}}">
{{/link}}
</div>
<div class="nav-wrapper">
<div id="google_translate_element" class="dropdown"></div>
<span class="icon-menu"></span>
<nav class="user-nav" id="user-nav">
{{link 'community'}}
{{link 'new_request' class='submit-a-request'}}
</nav>
{{user_info}}
</div>
</header>
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3. Modify the look of the Button
Then you will probably want to customize the look and feel of the Google Translate widget from the CSS file.
Here is I have configured it:
- Access your Guide admin interface
- Open your theme
- Access the style.css
- Add the following code at the bottom of the CSS file
/**************** Google Translate widget ***********/
iframe.goog-te-menu-frame.skiptranslate {
margin-top: 2px;
width: 175px;
border-radius: 5px;
box-shadow: 0 6px 12px rgba(0, 0, 0, .175);
animation: bounce .6s ease-out;
}
.goog-te-gadget-simple {
background-color: transparent !important;
white-space: nowrap !important;
border-color: white !important;
border-radius: 4px !important;
font-family: $font_2 !important;;
font-size: 14px !important;
}
.goog-te-menu-value {
color: $color_1 !important;
text-decoration: none !important;
float: right;
vertical-align:middle!important;
}
.goog-te-menu-value span {
color: $color_1 !important;
text-decoration: none !important;
}
.goog-te-menu-value:hover {
color: $color_1 !important;
text-decoration: none !important;
}
.goog-te-banner-frame {
display: none !important;
}
/* add the following (remove it from the comments) if you want to customize the icon of the widget.
/*.goog-te-gadget-icon {
background: url("url for the icon") 0 0 no-repeat !important;
}*/
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4. Modify the look of the Dropdown menu
Also you will perhaps want to customize the look of the drop-down (it is an iFrame)
For that you will need to add some javascript:
Here is I have configured it:
- Access your Guide admin interface
- Open your theme
- Access the script.js
- Add the following code at the bottom of the Script file
Note:
In the following example the style to inject in the iFrame is store as a Zendesk Asset:
//p4.zdassets.com/hc/theme_assets/549775/200068704/google-translate-override.css
To customize it:
1. create your own .css file
- upload it in your zendesk assets
- Replace the href value with your asset link
// Customize the Google Translate dropdown style
// (A bit tricky as the dropdown is wrapped in an iframe asynchronously loaded)
(function() {
var $previewFrame = $('#preview-frame');
function restyleDropdown() {
// In case of Zendesk preview mode, another iframe is wrapping the whole page
var $dropdownIframe = $previewFrame.length === 1
? $previewFrame.contents().find('.goog-te-menu-frame.skiptranslate')
: $('.goog-te-menu-frame.skiptranslate');
if($dropdownIframe.length) {
$dropdownIframe
.contents()
.find('head')
.append('<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//p4.zdassets.com/hc/theme_assets/549775/200068704/google-translate-override.css"/>');
} else {
setTimeout(restyleDropdown, 100);
}
}
restyleDropdown();
})();
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Hey Carl,
I was able to find an external article that may help embed Google Translate into your website: How to Put Google Translator Tool on Your Blogs and Websites
That article was recently updated so hopefully that gets you what you're looking for!