Translate a text into the language of the used InDesign®.

Translate a text into the language of the used InDesign®.

The language of the InDesign® you are using is determined when the program starts. The following language versions of InDesign® are supported:

• enEN : English
• deDE : German
• frFR : French
• jaJP : Japanese

The translations made by translate are mainly used to support the InDesign UI like the names of menus, custom dialogs or the descriptions of own Layout Rules. For translations of document contents the text::translate function can be used. With the help of so-called Artificial Intelligence this function provides pretty good results.

For translations prepared Key (=text) : Value (=translation) mappings are used. Only the definitions of the current InDesign® language are searched for translationas of course. Translations are searched - in that order - in those places:

1. Current Data Pool
2. Folder of priint:comet plug-ins
3. Built-In translations of the priint:comet plug-ins

For each language you want to support, a file called message_<language-code>.xml must be created. For XML data pools, place this file directly into the XML folder. From SOAP connections the file must be delivered with the fieldId of the same name. The following example describes the syntax of the XML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<messages>
  <!-- Simplest case: key without wildcard, translation without wildcard -->
  <message>
    <key>HELLO_WORLD</key>
    <translation>Hallo Welt!</translation>
  </message>

  <!--
    translation and key can contain placeholders (sensibly the same ones,
    so that input parameters can be used even
    if no translation for a translation is found for a key)
  -->
  <message>
    <key>SPRINTF_STR_INT_DOUBLE %s %d %1,2f</key>
    <translation>Formatted output "%s" int: "%d" double: %1,2f</translation>
  </message>
  <!-- etc. -->

</messages>

A table according to the following schema (MySQL dump) is required:

CREATE TABLE messages 
( 
    id INT(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
    `key` varchar(250) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    language varchar(4) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    translation text NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    PRIMARY KEY (id),
    UNIQUE INDEX key_language (`key`, language)
);

Translations independent of the data connection can be installed in the priint:comet plug-ins folder under the names message_<langcode>.xml. The files have the same format as the message_<langcode>.xmls of the XML offline folders and are read at program startup and each time the data pool is changed.

Built-in and available in every InDesign® language version is the following list of German (deDE) translations.

Built-in and available in every InDesign® language version is the following list of English (enEN) translations.

Built-in and available in every InDesign® language version is the following list of French (frFR) translations.

Built-in and available in every InDesign® language version is the following list of Japanese (jaJP) translations.

The second version of the call works on unformatted strings (strings without %d, %s, ...). It translates/re-translates simple strings and the first parameter is for distinction from the first version only, and must always be 0! Re-translations you may need to work with user input given in the foreign language.

Name	Type	Default	Description
Return	char*		Translation of the given text ofter replacing the %-placeholders. The result exists only temporarily. For further script uses, please copy its content.
formatStr	char*	-	Message. The string can contain %-markes , see here to learn more. An additional parameter is expected in the (correct) sequence and with the correct type for each of these markers.
...	depending on the %-markers	-	Values or variables according to the %-markers in formatStr
Unformatted string
p	int	-	Must always be 0.
char*	keyOrVal	-	Key or translation to find its sibling. Key are evaluated case insensitiv!
findKey	int	0	0 : search for the translation of keyOrVal 1 : search for the key of keyOrVal

Some possibilities to translate/retranslate strings. The 4th call finds the key to the given value. Be careful to use a showmessage with %s. Otherwise showmessage will tranlate your key automatically again. You should have defined the following translation:

<message>
    <key>deutsches <0x00F6></key>
    <translation>german <0x00F6></translation>
</message>

int main ()
{
    showmessage (translate ("deutsches ö"));
    showmessage (translate (0, "deutsches ö"));
    showmessage (translate (0, "deutsches ö", 0));
    showmessage (translate (0, "german ö", 1));

    return 0;
}

Since

P/R32, März 2006

Available

priint:comet InDesign® Plug-Ins, comet_pdf

See Also

comet.translate

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