Confluence: managing content in multiple language translations
Objective
How to manage multiple languages in Confluence? Does Confluence support multi-lingual pages?
Environment
Server / Cloud
Procedure
Server
Confluence does not have out-of-the-box support multi-lingual pages, but there are a few different methods you can try.
You may want to install additional translations which allow you to display Confluence UI in another language. For content translation, a common option is to use a browser-based tool such as Google Translate. You can then separate the page's content translations in Confluence using a variety of plugins:
One method is to utilize the Visibility Plugin, which can hide sections of content to specific groups. Users can be assigned into groups based on their language and only the appropriate translation would be visible to them for that page. You could then assign a small number of bi-lingual users the ability to edit pages so that they could ensure the content was kept consistent in both languages.
Another possible solution is to use the Composition plugin to create tabs (using the deck macro) on the page with different translations under each tab. This could work pretty well for people who are writing the same document in different languages. This has the benefit of letting users pick the language they want to read (or the one that is most complete) but doesn't really provide a site-wide solution for translation.
There are also a number of plugins in the Atlassian Marketplace available for additional language or translation support.
Cloud
For Confluence Cloud deployments, we would recommend creating separate space/page for each language as an alternative to splitting a page to (left/right or top/bottom) and providing anchor links to each language at the top of the page for easy navigation.
Additional Information
- How can I translate Confluence page content?
- Translating documentation developed on Confluence Wiki.