The W3C Internationalization (I18n) Activity works with W3C working groups and liaises with other organizations to ensure Web technologies work for everyone, regardless of their language, script, or culture.
From this page you can find articles and other resources about Web internationalization, and information about the groups that make up the Activity.
Read also about opportunities to participate and fund work via the new Sponsorship Program.
What the W3C Internationalization Activity does
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New translations into Hungarian
Thanks to Dénes Kohn, Metaphraser – Translation Company, the following articles have been translated into Hungarian. These are our first Hungarian translations on the Internationalization subsite.
Honosítás és Internacionalizálás (Localization vs. Internationalization)
Nemzetközi és többnyelvű weboldalak (International & multilingual web sites)
Szövegméret a fordításban (Text size in translation)
Updated Working Draft: Best Practices for Authoring HTML: Handling Right-to-left Scripts
The Internationalization Core Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Best Practices for Authoring HTML: Handling Right-to-left Scripts.
This document provides advice for the use of HTML markup and CSS style sheets to create pages containing languages that use right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Thaana, Urdu, etc.
The Working Group believes this document is complete and does not anticipate any substantive changes. This draft is provided as a last chance for review and feedback before publication as a Working Group Note.
Please send comments on this document to www-international@w3.org (publicly archived) by 28 July 2009.
Editor: Richard Ishida.
New translation into Spanish
Thanks to the Spanish Translation Team, Spanish Translation US, the article “Setting the HTTP charset parameter” has now been translated into Spanish.
Configuración del parámetro charset de HTTP
Updated Polish translation
Thanks to K. Wiśniewski the Getting Started article “Language on the Web” has now been updated in Polish.
New article: Using Unicode controls for bidi text
FAQ-based article: If I’m unable to use markup to correctly order bidirectional text, what can I do?
By Richard Ishida, W3C.
Updated tutorial: Creating HTML Pages in Arabic, Hebrew and Other Right-to-left Scripts
This tutorial was updated to incorporate changes made to the article What you need to know about the bidi algorithm and inline markup, but various additional changes were made, including a new approach to handling examples. For a detailed list of changes read the full post.
Translators should consider retranslating the whole tutorial.
The title was changed from ‘Creating (X)HTML Pages in Arabic & Hebrew’ to ‘Creating HTML Pages in Arabic, Hebrew and Other Right-to-left Scripts’.
This article was revised to provide more clarity. More examples were added, and a new approach was taken, using images for examples and providing links to live code.
The term ‘directional context’ was replaced with ‘base direction’, the meaning and impact of that was expressed better. It also shows a little more clearly the types of problem the bidi algorithm needs help with, and how the proposed solutions related to each other.
Updated article: What you need to know about the bidi algorithm and inline markup
This article was revised substantially.
Translators should consider retranslating the whole article.
This article was revised to provide more clarity. More examples were added, and a new approach was taken, using images for examples and providing links to live code.
The term ‘directional context’ was replaced with ‘base direction’, the meaning and impact of that was expressed better. It also shows a little more clearly the types of problem the bidi algorithm needs help with, and how the proposed solutions related to each other.
New translation into Bulgarian: Changing (X)HTML page encoding to UTF-8
Thanks to Ivan Baldwin the FAQ-based article “Changing (X)HTML page encoding to UTF-8” has now been translated into Bulgarian.
Променяне на (X)HTML кодировката на страницата с UTF-8
Article for wide review: Using Unicode controls for bidi text
Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org (subscribe). We expect to publish a final version in one to two weeks.
Talk slides: New Work on Japanese Layout Requirements
Richard Ishida gave a presentation entitled New Work on Japanese Layout Requirements on 11 June, 2009 at the Fachhochschule Potsdam, Germany. The slides are annotated and in PDF. They build on a previous talk by Richard Ishida, Steve Zilles and Tatsuo Kobayashi at the Unicode Conference, and describe some of the key characteristics of Japanese Layout described in the newly published W3C Note, Requirements for Japanese Text Layout.