How do I change or set the language in the widget on my website?

Question

How do I manually set the language of my Web Widget (Classic)? 

Answer 

By default, the widget language is set automatically based on the customer's browser, see more in this article: What language do my customers see the widget in on my website? If you would like to manually set the language of the widget instead, follow the directions below for the widget you have on your account.

Tip: Determine which widget you have with your Zendesk account, see the article: Which widget do I have with my Zendesk account?

If you use the Web Widget (Classic) with a Support account

To customize the Web Widget (Classic) so that it always appears in a specific language regardless of your customer's browser language, use the setLocale command as in the example below.

<script type="text/javascript">
  zE('webWidget', 'setLocale', 'LANGUAGE_CODE');
</script>

For more information, see the developer documentation for the setLocale settings. For a complete set of instructions, see the article: Advanced customization of the Web Widget (Classic).

Note: Setting the language via API does not extend to the Help Center search within the widget. The search matches the keywords used across all the Help Center languages. For example, the language of the widget is set to Dutch but the help center does not contain any Dutch content. The widget tries to match results in a different language supported, for example, French, and serves French results instead.

If you have a Chat-only Web Widget (Classic) account

To set the language for a Chat-only Web Widget (Classic), you will need to use custom code. See this guide in our developer portal for more information: Changing the widget language for chat-only accounts.

If you have a Legacy chat account

If you have a Legacy chat and would like to set the widget language, see the article: (Legacy Chat) Setting the language of the legacy Chat widget.