Translating WP Job Manager

WP Job Manager (and all official add-ons) are fully internationalized, which allows you to translate individual strings or use your own language. WP Job Manager comes with several user-contributed language files, but if yours is missing, you can translate it yourself.

Existing Translations of WPJM

All translations or translation work for the core plugin is performed wholly by volunteers. You can see existing publicly available translations of WPJM here:

https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/wp-job-manager/

Any translation which is not 90% or greater will not be automatically installed with WPJM. You can still download it by clicking on the language name, scrolling to the bottom of the language page, and exporting the existing strings.

Translations for the paid add-ons come from translate.wordpress.com. WP Job Manager installs them along with your other translation updates.

Note: a ‘string’ is any character or series of characters (ie, words) which can be translated.

When You Only Want to Change One Word to Another

If you want to change every instance of ‘Job’ to say ‘Vacancy’, try the Say What plugin. This simple plugin lets you translate any string via the WordPress admin dashboard. Your ‘translation’ can even be English->English!

You’ll need to provide the text domain of the plugin. You can find this in the root file of WPJM (or our other paid add-ons).

Text Domains

For the core WPJM plugin, this information is:

* Text Domain: wp-job-manager
* Domain Path: /languages/

For our paid add-ons, the text domains are:

Applications: wp-job-manager-applications

Application Deadline: wp-job-manager-application-deadline

Bookmarks: wp-job-manager-bookmarks

Embeddable Job Widget: wp-job-manager-embeddable-job-widget

Job Alerts: wp-job-manager-alerts

Job Tags: wp-job-manager-tags

Resume Manager: wp-job-manager-resumes

Simple Paid Listings: wp-job-manager-simple-paid-listings

WooCommerce Paid Listings: wp-job-manager-wc-paid-listings

Say What has more instructions here.

Translating WPJM

WP Job Manager includes a language file (.pot file) which contains all of the English text which can be translated via the plugin. This language file is in the plugin folder in wp-job-manager/languages/.

You can take a look at it here.

The same plugin-name/languages directory is also used for all paid add-ons.

Setting up WordPress in Your Language

WordPress needs to be told which language it should run under.

Change the language in the admin settings screen. This can be done via Settings → General → Site Language. This setting will impact the following areas of your site:

• The language used for your WordPress dashboard (WP Admin)
• The language used for your site’s public-facing (front-end) pages. The Site Language setting will attempt to translate your site, but this also depends on whether your chosen theme and plugins support that language.

This will not translate any existing post and page content – it will just translate the default text strings from your theme/plugins.

Examples of Using Translation Plugins/Software with WPJM

Please note that we cannot provide support for creating translations or for using the following plugins/software. Please contact the plugin developer for help with their plugin or software.

Translation Using Poedit

Poedit is an application you can use on your computer to translate a POT file into your language.

1. Download and install Poedit
2. Find the POT file in wp-job-manager/languages/wp-job-manager.pot
3. Open the POT file in Poedit.
4. Translate the strings into your language.
5. Go to File → Save as… to save your translations in a PO file.
6. After translating, go to File → Save as… again to generate the MO file.
7. Or you can set your Poedit always to compile a MO file when saving changes by clicking File → Preferences and on the Editor tab check the Automatically compile .mo file on the save box.
8. Upload your PO and MO files to the folder for that plugin, listed under Keep custom translations safe from updates below.

Updating your translation

After updates, you can update your po file by opening it and then going to Catalog > Update from the POT file. Choose the file, and it will be updated accordingly.

Translation Using Loco Translate

Loco Translate is a WordPress plugin that allows in-browser editing of PO files for localizing WordPress plugins and themes.

You can then follow the instructions that take you through translating.

They have a helpful beginner’s guide to the plugin as well.

Keep Custom Translations Safe from Updates

Save each custom translation in its plugin’s own folder inside wp-content/languages/. Updates never write to these folders, and WordPress loads a file from them before the official translation, so your wording is the one that shows.

Two other locations lose your changes:

• The plugin’s own folder, such as wp-content/plugins/wp-job-manager/languages/. A plugin update replaces everything in it.
• wp-content/languages/plugins/. WordPress installs official translations here and overwrites them whenever a newer translation is released. That includes the paid add-ons.

Put your .mo file at the path for your plugin. Replace LOCALE with your locale code, such as de_DE, and create the folder if it doesn’t exist. Find your code in the list of WordPress locales.

WP Job Manager and Embeddable Job Widget share the wp-job-manager folder. Every other add-on uses a folder named after its text domain.

Start from the Complete Official Translation

A custom file replaces the official translation for its plugin entirely. Once WordPress loads your file, it doesn’t load the official one, so any string missing from your file shows in English.

To change some strings and keep the rest of the official translation, follow these steps:

1. Copy the plugin’s official .po file from wp-content/languages/plugins/, for example wp-job-manager-de_DE.po.
2. Open the copy in Poedit and edit the strings you want to change.
3. Save it and compile it to a .mo file.
4. Upload the .mo file to the plugin’s folder in the table above. Keep your edited .po file, because you’ll need it after the next official translation update.

Update your File after an Official Translation Update

When WordPress installs a newer official translation, your custom file keeps loading, but it doesn’t include strings added since you made it. Those strings show in English. To bring your file up to date, copy the new official .po file, carry your edits over to it (for example, with Poedit), then compile and upload the new .mo file.

Multilingual Job Sites with WP Job Manager and WPML

If you want to create a job board site with listings in multiple languages, we recommend using WPML.

You can find documentation for setting up your multilingual job board site here:

https://wpml.org/documentation/plugins-compatibility/translating-wp-job-manager-using-wpml/

Note: If you encounter issues setting up your multilingual site, please open a support ticket with WPML here. They will investigate the issue and then contact our developers if any updates are necessary.

Optional: Contribute Your Translation to Core

All translations are performed by volunteers, not the WPJM development team. The core WPJM translations are hosted on WordPress.org:

https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/wp-job-manager

Anyone can signup and start translating here, and any updates will be included in WP Job Manager updates. Contributing to these translations benefits all users since they will be pulled into the plugins when downloaded.