Web-T, a multilingual automated website translation solution developed by the European Commission

“Web-T is a multilingual, automated website translation solution developed under the European Commission’s DIGITAL Europe programme. This free tool translates website content and SEO text into more than 24 languages, helping companies expand their business and reach a wider audience across Europe.”

The advantages / disadvantages of Web-T

Before going into the process, let me summarize my own experience / view on Web-T:

• let’s start with the biggest advantages
  • it is free to use
  • it works for all CMS
  • you can choose your Translation Provider
    • eTranslation (ie the European Commission’ tool)
    • or any Custom Provider (by filling in its Base URL and API Key)
  • it is GDPR-compliant: “Responsible Data Processing: WEB-T plugins process data locally on your website, ensuring compliance with pertinent data protection regulations, including the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the European Union.”
  • once you have translated your Articles, the newly translated Articles which are created are yours
    • with other words they are physically on your website. This means that you become totally independent of the tool
    • in contrast, some other paid tools out there allow you to translate your whole website and even customize the translations… but if you stop paying you “loose” all translations (unless you manually copy-paste them somehow before terminating the tool)
• while WEB-T itself is free
  • access to the eTranslation service and API key is limited to organizations and individuals within the European Union (EU) and its associated countries.
  • if you’re located outside the EU and require translation services, you’ll need to find a machine translation (MT) service provider compatible with the WEB-T API. Instructions on how to ensure compatibility with WEB-T APIs can be found here: https://website-translation.language-tools.ec.europa.eu/expanding-web-t-new-machine-translation_en
• the concept is to translate each Article
  • which has advantages: once an Article is translated
    • you can freely customize each translation since they are native Articles
    • you are not dependent any more from Web-T (you could even uninstall it altogether once the Articles have been translated)
    • so basically this means that you are in total control of your existing translations
  • which has a drawback: it does not translate the whole pages globally so you have to manually re-create
    • the Menus for each Language
    • the potential Modules (footer, …)
• classical Editor or Page Builder for each Article?
  • translations work great for all Articles using some classical Editor (TinyMCE, JCE, …)
  • if you are using a Page Builder as Editor
    • for Articles created directly with a Page Builder (YOOtheme for example) generally it does work correctly (this is because the Article’s content is then JSON containing our text but also all the layout and parameters)
    • note: to take the example of YOOtheme, if you create a Template for all Articles of given Categories then of course all works fine since your Articles as such are then using a classical Editor
• beyond Content
  • Fields like Meta Description for example are translated
  • Custom Fields are not translated
• you can translate to multiple Destination languages… but there is only one Source: the website default language
  • this would suit most users
  • but for example if you have Contributors writing each in their own (different) native language then you need to decide how you manage that
• in Components > Web-T >Configuration
  • there is a checkbox Translate on the fly (ie “Check for article translations on page load and translate if there are any missing languages.”)
    • can be handy
  • there is a checkbox Translate Article on Save
    • advantage: easy
    • drawback: especially if you have several languages, Users have to wait (for translations to be processed) after hitting Save on an Article (in my tests, sometimes I had to wait for ~ 1 minute even for short content)
    • but whatever you choose you can always manually trigger the translation of all contents to any language in Components > Web-T > Machine Translation

Resources about Web-T

• Web-T’s Official website: https://website-translation.language-tools.ec.europa.eu/index_en
• Web-T for Joomla: https://website-translation.language-tools.ec.europa.eu/solutions/web-t-joomla_en
• Web-T on the JED (Joomla Extensions Directory): https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/web-t/
• Joomla tutorial: https://website-translation.language-tools.ec.europa.eu/instruction-information-about-joomla_en
• Configure WEB-T Joomla extension (10 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7-canbn7_g

How to set up Web-T on your website?

Go to Components > Web-T > Translation Provider

Click on the link at the bottom of the interface “Set up an account for eTranslation”:

https://website-translation.language-tools.ec.europa.eu/automated-translation_en

From there click on the button Get your credentials here:

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/etranslation/public/requestApiKey.html

You get the credentials:

Type those credentials in your website:

Note the message Please check the MT engines you've set up under WEB-T > Configuration after making changes to the MT provider

Save. Then you get the message MT provider connection successful! Settings saved!

The YouTube tutorial mentioned above can be summarized as follows:

• install new language(s)
• publish the Content Language(s)
• Manage Extensions > System Language Code > enable
• create New Language Switcher Module and publish it
• for each (concerned) Article, assign the right Language
• Components > Web-T
  • Translation provider : set up (done here above)
  • Configuration:
    • check/uncheck the options according to your preferences
    • for each language select the machine translation engine
      • [Unspecified]
      • Finance
      • Court of Justice Case Law
      • General text
      • IP Case Law
      • EU Formal Language
    • Save
• create a new Menu for each Language and create the Menu Items

Personal notes