TranslatePress

TranslatePress is a WordPress plugin that lets you translate your site, or parts of it, in a simple way – directly from the front-end. It works similarly to a visual page editor in that regard. More and more sites are catering to an international audience and you can’t afford not put up multilingual content anymore.

In line with this, it’s no wonder the plugin’s popularity and financial gain have grown exponentially in such a short time. Put simply – if you’re translating your site, then you should, by all means, be using TranslatePress.

Translating made easy

As already mentioned the whole translating process (at least the manual part), is done directly on the page in a user-friendly interface and is therefore easy for anyone to pick up regardless of any previous skill. The great thing is that the plugin seamlessly integrates itself into your existing theme settings, so you won’t have to change anything in order to use it.

We could say it has a plug-and-play nature to it. Because of this, there should be no conflicts with anything you’re already using and not only that, every translation you make can be viewed practically in real-time – with just a click of a button everything is displayed for you. If you’re more akin to using an automatic translator, then have no fear, because TranslatePress is integrated with the popular Google Translate and all you’ll need is a Google API key.

Both the free and premium versions also include features like setting a default language for the page and its contents. After you’ve done that, a drop-down menu is added where all the languages you’ve inserted are listed (you can choose whether the display of the languages is in English, or in the native language you’re choosing). You can also customize how the language switcher will be presented to site visitors in the settings tab. This way anyone browsing the site can quickly change to their preferred language.

For advanced users, there are, of course, advanced options. By using the CSS class translation-block, you’ll be able to translate specific HTML blocks:

<p class="translation-block">Translate <em>everything</em> inside</p>

As you get more accustomed to using the plugin and inserting specific commands directly in the code you’ll find that what you can do extends far beyond the front-end editor. Of course, not taking anything away from all the features “regular users” have at their disposal using it, but more as an added bonus.

Free and premium

Now that we’ve covered the basic functions of the plugin, it’s time to dig deeper. First of all, we have to point out that it has a sublime free version which isn’t as robust as the premium one with all the add-ons, but is still very adequate for its price (it’s free!) and will serve you very well. In fact, you can check out the very informative comparison of all the providers and what they offer – TranslatPress’s free version is brimming with possibilities compared to some others.

Now the premium version, on the other hand, adds a whole lot more and will be your “go to” version if you’re running a professional site. The aforementioned add-ons include:

Extra languages – gives you the option to add up to 221 languages to your site, as well as control over publishing concerning each language (publish only when everything is translated).

SEO pack – allows you to individually translate SEO elements of a page such as a page title, URL slug, descriptions etc.

Translator accounts – you’ll be able to add new users and enable them to make translations without admin rights (essentially making them moderators) – all features in the basic (or free) package are enabled, most relevant the front-end editing.

Browse as other role – while translating you’ll have the option to view the page in real-time as a number of different user roles that could, potentially be viewing the site, allowing you to see how everything looks from the different point of views.

Navigation based on language – you can customize your menus to display items only in certain languages which is useful when a translation for a specific language isn’t done, or if publishing content isn’t prudent in some countries, therefore, making their language in this matter unnecessary.

Automatic user language detection – enables you to insert language detection for your site based on their IP and default setting, saving their preference for further visits.

We would like to mention that not all the aforementioned add-ons were available at launch, but were added with later versions. Since some of the pricing tiers (which we’ll get into shortly) include licenses for future add-ons, it’s safe to assume we’ll be getting even more features in the future.

Pricing tiers and features

There are three different tiers of pricing for premium users, all of them requiring an annual subscription:

• Personal – get the “basic package” (covered in the first paragraph) plus the SEO pack and multiple language add-ons; can be used only on one site
• Business – get the “basic package plus all the add-ons”; can be used on three sites
• Developer – the same as the business tier, but can be used on unlimited sites

The detailed pricing table with everything that each tier provides can be found on the official website.

Ultimate translating tool

The scope of what you can translate with TranslatePress is vast and includes webpage elements like posts, pages, menus, dynamic content etc. (you can find the full list here, in the second table). Compared to other similar plugins or apps we have to say TranslatePress offers more in both the free and premium versions. This applies to overall features as well as speed.

In about a year since its release the plugin has gathered over 20000 active installations and the reviews have been pretty much all excellent. It’s regularly updated and, although we didn’t have any problems, the support is timely and efficient based on the comments. When everything is said and done, taking into account all the time we spent testing the plugin we have to agree with all the rave reviews and give TranslatePress the best grades and recommendations.