Pseudolocalization
Pseudo-localization is a method used to check the software’s readiness to be localized. This method shows how the product’s UI will look after translation. Use this feature to reduce potential rework by checking whether any source strings should be altered before the translation process begins.
With Pseudo-localization, you can quickly check the following:
- How languages with texts that tend to be longer/shorter than the source texts fit your product’s UI
- Check whether all the translatable strings are uploaded into your project
- Find non-translatable texts in your software (might be strings like application name)
- See how well your product supports different character sets and right-to-left/left-to-right languages
Pseudo-localization can be customized to fit your needs. There are several parameters you can adjust to see how your application will look with different languages.
Allows you make strings longer or shorter to see if your product’s UI handles other languages correctly. Because translations in some languages may be longer or shorter than the source texts in your project. For example, Spanish texts are on average 25-30% longer than English texts, while Japanese texts are 30-60% shorter.
Add prefixes and suffixes to see where each string starts and ends in the UI, regardless of the language.
Character Transformation replaces English characters with easily recognizable accented versions, random Arabic symbols, or Chinese ideographs to make it obvious if there are some hard-coded strings in your application. This ensures that your application is ready for localization into other languages (including right-to-left and left-to-right languages).
To run Pseudo-localization, you can use the Pseudo-localization app that could be installed via Crowdin Store.
Install the AppTo set up the Pseudo-localization app, follow these steps:
- Select one of the available presets or set all the required parameters manually.
- Click Pseudo-localize and Download. As a result, you will get an archive with pseudo-localized project files.
- Integrate the downloaded files into your software.
Another way to set up and download your pseudo-localized project files is to use Crowdin CLI.
Read more about Downloading Pseudo-localization via CLI.
If you prefer working with API, you can use the following API methods.
- Build Project Translation - ensure to switch to the
TranslationCreateProjectPseudoBuildFormschema. - Check Project Build Status.
- Download Project Translations.
- Build Project Translation - ensure to switch to the
TranslationCreateProjectPseudoBuildFormschema. - Check Project Build Status.
- Download Project Translations.
This is an asynchronous API, so you must check the build status before downloading the pseudo-localized files.
Read more about API.
For design tool (Figma, Adobe XD) users, there’s also an option to test whether the designs are ready to be localized using pseudo-localization. This feature is integrated into Crowdin for Figma and Crowdin for Adobe XD plugins.
It allows you to simulate how your content (e.g., the application’s UI) will look with different languages to check whether the source strings should be modified before the project localization starts. You can start pseudo-localizing your content right after sending your texts to Crowdin.