Translation process

Location

We will host your translation on the W3C site, in the same directory as the original page. This facilitates language negotiation.

Please send the XHTML file to us, or direct us to a location where we can obtain it.

Character encoding

Please use UTF-8.

File naming

Please name your file <original-file-name>.<lang>.html, where <lang> is an RFC 4646 language tag. For instance, the name of the file qa-character-encoding.en.php, translated into Spanish, would be qa-character-encoding.es.php.

PHP code

The template we will send to you will contain PHP code. With one exception, you should not change any of this code. The exception is a set of variable assignments at the top of the page.

At the top of the file are a number of variable assignments in the PHP code. The comments indicate which of these need to be changed by the translator. Please do so, but ensure that you do not use quotes in a way that would invalidate the string boundaries. Follow any instructions in comments (ie. text after //).

The variables that need attention are currently:

• $clang
• $isTranslation
• $copyrightYear
• $translators
• $enVersion
• $thisVersion

You are welcome to add links to your organization's Web site in $translators (just be careful about the quotes).

You may write names in your local script (eg. translator's, or even author's names), but please add the romanised form of the name in parentheses immediately after.

Markup and styling

Please preserve the original markup. Markup should only need adaptation in exceptional circumstances and small amounts. If you feel you need to change the markup, please contact us.

We may need to change the styling to suit a particular language or script. If so, please contact us with your proposals. Typically, we would create an additional stylesheet for the language that would overwrite the features in the main stylesheet as necessary.

Please use the W3C Validator to ensure that the file is valid XHTML, and checks that it conforms to Appendix C of the XHTML 1.0 specification, before sending the completed translation.

Note that your file will be served without an XML declaration, though you may supply the file to us with one.

Keywords and description meta-data

You may replace the English text or add a translation alongside. If you leave the English meta in, please ensure that there are lang="en" and xml:lang="en" attributes attached to it.

Boilerplate translation text

A good deal of pre-translated text is available from the translation text page. These translations will be automatically incorporated into the final page by the PHP code. This will maintain consistency, improve your productivity, ensure better coverage of non-visible text, and make it easier to deal with changes to the standard template.

If translations for the text on the page just referred to are missing for your language, please translate the English boilerplate text file and send that to Richard Ishida

Linking to other pages

If there is a link to a specification or W3C document, etc., for which a translated version exists, please feel free to add a link to the translated version after the original link.

Links to pages below /International should not start with http://www.w3.org. Nor should they end with .html (this is to enable language negotiation).

Please check that all links work before sending the file for publication.

Non-visible text

Please ensure that you have translated all text, including alt and title text, and text for accessibility use.

Changes to the text

Translators should provide a list of the following:

• instances where, in addition to translating the document, they adapt the content, eg. providing culturally relevant examples, or adding explanations or notes to the text
• updates to the translated content of a previously translated version, unless this is based on changes made in the English version ( in which case the reference to the original needs to be changed).

This information will be added to a blog post on the Internationalization home page made when the translation is announced.

Notification of new or updated translations

Richard Ishida will notify the translators@w3.org and www-international@w3.org lists after a translation is uploaded to the W3C International site. He will also add an entry to the recent translations page.

Coralie Mercier and Ivan Herman will then add information to the RDF database to update the list of i18n translations.

Help us by updating the translation as the document changes

The pages on the Internationalization site are likely to change at any time, and if we are language negotiating it is important that the translations remain up to date. Please track the changes in the original English document and update your translation as appropriate.