Internet has become a global marketplace and it has become increasingly important for Web sites to be available in the native languages of the target audiences. If you want to sell a product, you are more likely to get a higher return on investment if you can sell the product in the language of the target audience.

Web sites in multiple languages may also be targeted at multiple languages that are spoken to a domestic audience, e.g. Swedish sign language and easy-to read on a Swedish Web site, and both Catalan and Spanish on a Spanish Web site. As accessibility becomes an increasingly important issue for Internet, an increasing amount of authorities' Web sites are also available in sign language.

EPiServer has supported the creation of globalized Web sites since version 4.30. This functionality has been greatly enhanced in EPiServer 4.60 and this white paper outlines many of the enhanced features.

The following terminology is used throughout this white paper.

Language

One of the definitions of the word "language", according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, is "a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings".

This document refers to "language" as:

1. a linguistic language, e.g. English, Spanish, Dutch, Catalan
2. a variation of a linguistic language, e.g. English sign language, Spanish sign language, easy-to-read.
3. the vocabulary and phraseology belonging to a certain target group, i.e. the Spanish or German market.

Localization

According to W3C, localization refers to the adaptation of a product, application or document content to meet the language, cultural and other requirements of a specific target market (a "locale").

Localization is sometimes written as "l10n", where 10 is the number of letters between 'l' and 'n'.

Often thought of only as a synonym for translation of the user interface and documentation, localization is often a substantially more complex issue. It can entail customization related to:

• Numeric, date and time formats
• Use of currency
• Keyboard usage
• Collation and sorting
• Symbols, icons and colors
• Text and graphics containing references to objects, actions or ideas which, in a given culture, may be subject to misinterpretation or viewed as insensitive.
• Varying legal requirements

Localization may even require a comprehensive rethinking of logic, visual design, or presentation of the way of doing business (e.g., accounting) or the accepted paradigm for learning (e.g., focus on individual vs. group) as they may differ substantially between the originating culture and the localized culture.

Globalized Web Site

The term "globalized Web site" is used for the following concepts in this white paper.

A globalized Web site can be:

• multilingual with the same content
  a Web site that mirrors an original language, i.e. identical content translated into several languages;
• multilingual and adapted to international markets
  a Web site that contains different content depending on the language. These Web sites are normally aimed at separate markets. For example, the Spanish Web site contains content that applies to the Spanish market and the German Web site contains content concerning the German market;
• monolingual and adapted to different target groups
  a Web site that contains different content in the same language, targeted at different target groups. For example, a government Web site that contains content both in sign language and in a language that is easy-to-read.

As explained in the previous chapter, a globalized Web site does not have to be multilingual – it can also be a monolingual Web site that is adapted to different target groups. EPiServer's support for Web site globalization is further exemplified in the examples below.

Monolingual, Adapted to Different Target Groups

Some Web sites contain content adapted to different target groups, although the sites may remain predominantly monolingual. This may be important to suit the different habits and/or varying social conditions of the audience.

A good example of a monolingual Web site that is adapted to different target groups is a government Web site that contains information for those who have difficulty reading and require text that is easy-to-read. With EPiServer's support for globalized Web sites, it is just as easy to create an "easy-to-read" site as it is to create a site in another language, i.e. easy-to-read is also treated as a language.

An example of an EPiServer Web site that has easy-to-read information is The Swedish Parliament (Sveriges Riksdag – http://www.riksdagen.se).

A monolingual Web site can also be adapted to tailor information to suit the needs of, for example, different buying habits or social conditions. An example of this could be a bank Web site that has information adapted to whether you are interested in personal banking, business banking or commercial banking.

Multilingual, Same Content

A multilingual Web site in its simplest form may have an identical copy of the English site in each of the target languages—a pure translation of the original Web site.

Web sites that contain the same content for multiple languages address understandability, but do not necessarily address cultural differences. They most often help the reader understand the information, but may lack sufficient impact and relevance for the local reader.

The following examples show how a multilingual site that contains the same content may look.

Multilingual, Adapted to International Markets

A more advanced multilingual Web site is more than just a translation of the original Web site. Multilingual Web sites that are adapted to other markets often contain content that has been especially designed for a specific market.

EPiServer's support for globalized Web sites has been designed with great focus placed on usability and the graphical user interface is intuitive and user-friendly. It is easy for everyone to work with globalized Web sites, no matter what role they have in the Web site creation. The following roles will find that the user interface has been adapted to suit their needs.

• EPiServer editors
  EPiServer editors, irrespective of whether they are responsible for creating pages in one or more languages, need to be able to quickly create, edit, and publish pages on a Web site. In EPiServer 4.60 it is just as easy to create a page on a Web site as in previous versions, but it is easier to create a different variation of a page. All EPiServer standard templates support globalization, which means that there are no limitations to the content that can be included on a globalized Web site.
  Editors may be responsible for a single page or several pages. It is easy to access information about different variations of a single page, by opening the "Page Languages" view in the Action Window.
• Webmasters
  Webmasters need to be able to quickly access information about the status of the pages that are included in a Web site. This may involve, for example, finding out which pages exist in a certain language and which pages are currently not published in which language. The Language Overview is opened from the toolbar in Edit mode and allows Webmasters to quickly access information about the pages included in the Web site.

• Translators
  The "compare with" function allows translators to add information in a second language while being able to compare with the text of the first language in the same window. This is done by selecting the language to be translated from in the drop-down list at the top of the Edit pane.

• Administrators
  New languages are easily added to a Web site from Admin mode, without the involvement of EPiServer programmers. Once a new language has been added, it is possible for users with Administrator access rights to configure that only certain languages are available in certain parts of the Web site. For example, if you want the pages under a certain section to only be available in English, this is configured via Language Settings which is accessed from the toolbar in Edit mode. Fallback languages and replacement languages can also be configured by administrators in Language Settings.

Easy to Learn and Quick to Use

The user-friendly design of EPiServer's Edit mode makes it very easy to work with globalized Web sites and to create a variation of pages in different languages.

The example below shows the simple steps that are needed to add text in another language to an existing page.

1. Change the language in the tree structure so that you can see which pages do not currently exist in your second language (Swedish in this case). The pages in the tree structure that are in italics do not currently exist in Swedish.
2. Select the page you want to translate in the tree structure and the page opens to the right.
3. Change the language in the drop-down list at the top of the Edit window to your second language. This will open the page without content.
4. Enter a name for the page.
5. Enter content for the page and click Save and Publish. It's as easy as that!

EPiServer's support for globalized Web sites is an integral part of the system and all pages created in EPiServer can easily be adapted for globalized Web sites. Editors editing a page that are available in multiple languages work in the same way as they do with pages that are only available in one language.

Original language

One of the main concepts in the support for globalized Web sites is the existence of an original language. All pages created in EPiServer have an original language, which is the language that the page in initially created in. The original language includes both the page content and the common properties for that page, for example categories, sort order, and whether the page should be displayed in menus.

If one of the common properties should be able to be changed for another language, this is easily done by selecting a check box for the specific page type property in Admin mode. The property will then be unique for all languages and will be able to be set individually for each page and each Web site language.

Metadata

Metadata affecting content such as page name, start / stop publishing dates, etc. is stored for all languages. This means in practice that it is possible to give the pages different names and start and stop publishing dates. This may be useful if you want certain pages in the Spanish Web site to be published a number of days after the same pages in the English Web site.

Metadata that affects the page in navigation, such as whether the page should be visible in menus and sort order and index, is common to all page languages and editable via the original language.