If manually translating 250 articles of your help center to 6 different (or more) languages is not an option for you, here is a quick guide on how to insert the free Google translate widget to your help center and providing a “good enough” automated translation.

Keep in mind that Google Translate widget does not cover the translation of search nor of the screenshots (obviously..).

You can check out what it looks like and how it works here: https://support.aodocs.com

Note:
The following steps are done from the newest version of the Guite Theme editor.

We are going to go it in 4 steps:

1. Insert the script to your Help Center

2. Insert the button in the Guide Header

3. Modify the look of the Button

4. Modify the look of the Dropdown menu

1. Insert the script in the Guide document_head.hbs

Access your Guide admin interface
Open your theme
Access the templates
Select the document_head.hbs
Add the following code:

<!-- Load the Google Translate Widget -->

<script type="text/javascript">

function googleTranslateWidgetInit() {

new google.translate.TranslateElement({

pageLanguage: 'en',

includedLanguages: 'es,fr,it,ja,pt,en',

layout: google.translate.TranslateElement.InlineLayout.SIMPLE

}, 'google_translate_element');

}

</script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="//translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js?cb=googleTranslateWidgetInit"></script>

2. Insert the button in the Guide Header

Once this the script is added, the script will launch every time the page loads and adds the widget (we are not done yet). We are going to insert it in the Header of the Guide interface so that it is always visible to the users.

Access your Guide admin interface
Open your theme
Access the templates
Select the header.hbs
Add the following code at the location in the header where you want the widget to be:

<div id="google_translate_element" class="dropdown"></div>

In the standard Copenhagen theme it would look like this when added to the nav-wrapper:

<header class="header">

 <div class="logo">

   {{#link 'help_center'}}

     <img src="{{logo_url}}" alt="{{t 'logo'}}">

   {{/link}}

 </div>

 <div class="nav-wrapper">

   <div id="google_translate_element" class="dropdown"></div>

   <span class="icon-menu"></span>

   <nav class="user-nav" id="user-nav">

     {{link 'community'}}

     {{link 'new_request' class='submit-a-request'}}

   </nav>

   {{user_info}}

 </div>

</header>

3. Modify the look of the Button

Then you will probably want to customize the look and feel of the Google Translate widget from the CSS file.

Here is I have configured it:

Access your Guide admin interface
Open your theme
Access the style.css
Add the following code at the bottom of the CSS file

/**************** Google Translate widget ***********/

iframe.goog-te-menu-frame.skiptranslate {

 margin-top: 2px;

 width: 175px;

 border-radius: 5px;

 box-shadow: 0 6px 12px rgba(0, 0, 0, .175);

 animation: bounce .6s ease-out;

}

.goog-te-gadget-simple {

 background-color: transparent !important;

 white-space: nowrap !important;

 border-color: white !important;

 border-radius: 4px !important;

 font-family: $font_2 !important;;

 font-size: 14px !important;

}

.goog-te-menu-value {

 color: $color_1 !important;

 text-decoration: none !important;

 float: right;

 vertical-align:middle!important;

}

.goog-te-menu-value span {

 color: $color_1 !important;

 text-decoration: none !important;

}

.goog-te-menu-value:hover {

 color: $color_1 !important;

 text-decoration: none !important;

}

.goog-te-banner-frame {

display: none !important;

}

/* add the following (remove it from the comments) if you want to customize the icon of the widget.

/*.goog-te-gadget-icon {

 background: url("url for the icon") 0 0 no-repeat !important;

}*/

4. Modify the look of the Dropdown menu

Also you will perhaps want to customize the look of the drop-down (it is an iFrame)

For that you will need to add some javascript:

Here is I have configured it:

Access your Guide admin interface
Open your theme
Access the script.js
Add the following code at the bottom of the Script file

Note:
In the following example the style to inject in the iFrame is store as a Zendesk Asset:
//p4.zdassets.com/hc/theme_assets/549775/200068704/google-translate-override.css

To customize it:
1. create your own .css file

upload it in your zendesk assets
Replace the href value with your asset link

// Customize the Google Translate dropdown style

 // (A bit tricky as the dropdown is wrapped in an iframe asynchronously loaded)

(function() {

   var $previewFrame = $('#preview-frame');
   

   function restyleDropdown() {
    

     // In case of Zendesk preview mode, another iframe is wrapping the whole page

     var $dropdownIframe = $previewFrame.length === 1

    ? $previewFrame.contents().find('.goog-te-menu-frame.skiptranslate')

    : $('.goog-te-menu-frame.skiptranslate');

     if($dropdownIframe.length) {

      $dropdownIframe

         .contents()

         .find('head')

         .append('<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//p4.zdassets.com/hc/theme_assets/549775/200068704/google-translate-override.css"/>');

     } else {

      setTimeout(restyleDropdown, 100);

     }

   }

   restyleDropdown();

})();

Jennifer Rowe

October 24, 2017 15:00

This is such a great, useful tip! Thanks for sharing it, Thibault!

Jacob J Christensen

October 27, 2017 07:51

Very cool!

Alexandr Tumanov

January 16, 2018 15:43

Thanks for the widget. However, it duplicates few fields on contact form. The same behaviour can be also found on example web site.

Is there any update for this widget?

Darren Hua

February 13, 2018 14:22
Edited

Thank you!

Thibault

February 13, 2018 15:30

Hi Darren,

to add additional languages, you can modify the property by adding or removing languages:

includedLanguages: 'es,fr,it,ja,pt,en,sv,de',

The list of language parameters can be found here: https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/languages

February 14, 2018 07:52

Hi Thibault,

Thank you so much for the help! We now have it implemented on our help site. :) Do you have any way to track this on Google analytics? A script we can put into our guide center by chance??? :D

Either way, thank you for the helpful guide!

Merav B

March 13, 2018 11:13

Hello,

I have a custom theme and I am trying to implement this code in my document head.

I paste in the code and then hit Preview and I don't see any change.

My document head looks has only this:

Could someone please assist me ?

Thank you

Merav

Jessie Schutz

March 16, 2018 19:59

Hi Merav!

Let me check with some of our Community Moderators to see if they can help you!

March 19, 2018 11:57

Thank you Jessie.

March 25, 2018 14:19

hi Jessie,

I wanted to let you know that I opened a support ticket about this issue, since it's become more critical.

March 26, 2018 15:09

Since this is a Community Tip I'm not sure that Support will be able to help you, but I've pinged the Mods again to try and get someone in here to look at this with you.

Trapta

March 28, 2018 09:35

Hi @Merav,

You have to follow the steps as mentioned in the tip and it should work properly. I have deployed it on my side and it seems to work fine.

A screenshot of what issue you are facing or the HC URL will be a great help in fixing the issue you are facing.

Thanks

Heather Cook

June 18, 2018 07:39

Do you have an pictures of it working? What could it look like?

June 18, 2018 08:50

@Heather

Sure, go to our help center https://support.pepperi.com and you can try it out.

(I have one small issue that I must have the "open a ticket" page in Hebrew, however I do not want to offer google translation of the articles to Hebrew, so I didn't add Hebrew to the google translate options, but I did add it in the built in Zendesk language menu all the way on the right. If I didn't need that support ticket page in Hebrew I would completely remove that built in Zendesk language menu option). Let me know what you think.

thanks

Kasper Brøckner

May 22, 2019 10:43

Is there an option for this to work in the mobile-site as well?

I havent figured it out :-)

In the normal website it is working just fine.

May 22, 2019 11:25

Hi Kasper,

It should still be working, however, in the Copenhagen theme the mobile view has hidden away action items like this. You should be able to find it if you open up the hamburger menu.

I'm pretty sure you could place the language selector elsewhere though.

May 22, 2019 13:28

Ahh... we are not using the Copenhagen Theme.

The theme we are using does not have the hamburger menu option.

May 23, 2019 17:30

Hi @Kasper,

May you please share the URL of your helpcenter so that I can take a look at it?

Insert Google Translate widget to your Helpcenter

1. Insert the script in the Guide document_head.hbs

2. Insert the button in the Guide Header

3. Modify the look of the Button

4. Modify the look of the Dropdown menu

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