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Translating PaperCut into languages other than English

PaperCut NG is designed to be quickly translated into any language. A number of the main languages are maintained by PaperCut Software. Other, less common languages, are maintained in a cooperative community fashion by PaperCut NG users.

(If you do assist us with translation, please make yourself known to our development team. We offer a few bonus such as free lifetime upgrades to users that help with translations!)

Translations can be classed into two levels:

  1. Basic translation of the end-user interface. This involves translating the areas of the application such as the user client tool, and the web interface used by end-users to check their account balance. The administration interface remains in the default English language. See the section title Basic Translation Level at the bottom of this page for more details.
  2. The full translation addresses all areas of the interface including the administration areas and functions.

Translations are best done by a person:

  • who is a native speaker of the target language
  • has a computing or technical background
  • has good English language skills

A full professional-level translation (excluding documentation) usually takes between 30 and 40 hours. It’s a tedious process and one best done in a number of stages!

The Translation Process

The translation process involves the following tasks:

Task 1 – System access

Contact the PaperCut NG development team to obtain a login to the web based translation system. The PaperCut NG development team can be contacted via the standard support email address.

Task 2 – Login to the system

Log into the system with the username and password provided. Select the PaperCut NG project.

Task 3 – Translate

The strings (text used in the application) are presented in English and have blank text boxes for the translated equivalent. The application is divided up into a number of areas. All areas need to be translated.

TIPS:
1. The symbols {0}, {1}, {2} etc denote place holders and are replaced by the application. The translated string needs to contact the same place holders. For example:
The printer "{0}" was manually edited by "{1}"
may become
L'imprimante "{0}" a été manuellement éditée par "{1}"
2. Don’t translate string sections marked with % place holders. For example %PAGES%.
3. Important: Save your work every 10 minutes or so. This will prevent you from losing changes in the event of a network connection problem.
4. Most strings are single lines. Multi-line strings are denoted by small grey paragraph markers. There is no need to include the paragraph markers in the translation. Just hit Enter where the new lines are required.
5. If you’re undertaking the basic translation, only some sections need to be translated. See the additional notes below detailing these sections.

Task 4 - Testing

NOTE: DO NOT PERFORM THIS STEP UNLESS INSTRUCTED BY PAPERCUT SUPPORT. This testing step requires a specific version of PaperCut to be installed and can break an existing installation. Skip to the next step.

The translation may be tested by downloading the translated files. It’s important that testing be performed on a test system and not a live installation. To test:

  • Download all JARS from the translation site
  • Stop the PaperCut Application Server under Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services
  • Move the files to an alternate location on the server’s hard drive (note that they must by moved out of the installation directory or they will conflict with the new files): 
       [app-dir]/server/lib/pcng-server-*.jar
       [app-dir]/server/lib/pcng-common-*.jar
       [app-dir]/server/lib/pcng-server-*.war
       [app-dir]/server/lib/pcng-server-web*.jar
       [app-dir]/client/lib/pcng-common-*.jar
       [app-dir]/client/lib/pcng-client-*.jar
  • Copy the corresponding files downloaded from the translation site into the directories: 
       [app-dir]/server/lib/
       [app-dir]/client/lib/
  • Start the PaperCut Application Server
  • Login as admin and navigate to Options->Config Editor (Advanced)
  • Use the Quick Find to locate the key: language.additional
  • Add your two letter language code to this key and click Update. (language code list)
  • Log out. Your new language option should be listed in the login screen's language options list.

Task 5 - Review

Review translation and make any changes required.

Task 6 - Ready for Release

Inform the PaperCut NG development team that the translation is complete so they can incorporate the translation into an official production-ready release.

Task 7 - Other

It is also possible to translate the Windows installer program into the local language. If you'd like to conduct this level of translation, please contact our development team at support@papercut.com.

Basic Translation Level:

The basic end-user tools translation needs the following sections translated (e.g. translation of all end-user facing components): 

    pcng-client.jar
        ALL

    pcng-release.jar
        ALL

    pcng-server.jar
        biz/papercut/pcng/domain/webprint/messages.properties 

    pcng-server.war
        WEB-INF/AccountTransactions.properties
        WEB-INF/EnvironmentalImpact.properties
        WEB-INF/FilterPanel.properties
        WEB-INF/PrintLogs.properties
        WEB-INF/PrinterRatesTable.properties
        WEB-INF/ReleaseStationJobs.properties
        WEB-INF/TopUpCardUse.properties
        WEB-INF/UserBorder.properties
        WEB-INF/UserBorderMobile.properties
        WEB-INF/UserOptions.properties
        WEB-INF/UserPrintLogs.properties
        WEB-INF/UserRates.properties
        WEB-INF/UserRefundRequest.properties
        WEB-INF/UserReleaseJobs.properties
        WEB-INF/UserSharedAccountList.properties
        WEB-INF/UserSharedAccounts.properties
        WEB-INF/UserSummary.properties
        WEB-INF/UserSummaryMobile.properties
        WEB-INF/UserTopUpCards.properties
        WEB-INF/UserTopUpCardsMobile.properties
        WEB-INF/UserTransactions.properties
        WEB-INF/UserTransfer.properties
        WEB-INF/UserWebPrint.properties 
        WEB-INF/UserWebPrintBorder.properties
        WEB-INF/UserWebPrintSelectPrinter.properties 
        WEB-INF/UserWebPrintUpload.properties

Categories: PaperCut NG and PaperCut ChargeBack 7+, Translation, International Projects and Localization

Keywords: translate, interpret, language, localize

Page last modified on April 18, 2010, at 07:18 PM