Hi Smartbuilder,

I'm currently working on a project which needs to be deliverd in 6 languages. I did run across this post on the forum "https://tinyurl.com/bdehsjtp" from a few years ago. The problem with this is that we still need multiple exports  (and that there is small 'dropdown website' before opening the elearning). And with 6 languages and maybe more to come , we would really like it to be in one export. So I was wondering if there was a better way to do this now.

My idea was to make language buttons at he beginning that checks column A
Then all text into variables, which is now easier with the {{variablename}} function directly in the text
and then attach an excel sheet which cross checks language with the variable, and dynamically loads these values in every slide, after the first language button





I'm curious if something like this is possible, or if there is another way to easy do this without making multiple exports . My guess is that especially the dynamic loading from an external source on every slide is the difficult part, but probably you guys have a way better idea

Thanks in advance

Hi Marcel,
What are you defining as an "export"? When you say you don't want multiple exports, are you talking about exporting the text to multiple text files to translate and then bring back in? Or creating multiple copies of the lesson? Or you don't want the dropdown list?

For the dropdown list, we have a method of autodetecting the browser's language setting and displaying that copy of the lesson (see the forum post at the bottom of the thread you linked to). So there would be no need for a dropdown list.

As for putting all your text in an spreadsheet, I suppose what you're suggesting is possible, but it sounds like it would be really hard to keep track of everything, and it would only display the appropriate text at runtime. So testing would be very slow. The reason that we have you copy a lesson is that different languages take up different amounts of space, and there is almost always a need to adjust the layout for each language, and often to swap out images, audio, or videos that contain text. That is easier to do when you can see each language on the authoring stage. Otherwise, you have to go through each of your "longer" languages (like Spanish and Russian) and make sure that you have left enough room for those when they load in.

Overall, we recommend creating a source language file and getting it as close to completion as possible. Then creating a copy, exporting the text for each language, translating it, importing it back in, and then making adjustments on the page. Once you're done, you can combine this into a single SCORM package.

I'm not sure what the benefits of making all your text dynamic throughout an entire lesson would be. I think you'll spend more time formating your spreadsheet than you would following the usual process outlined above.

Hi Navdeep,

It's mostly the multiple copies of the lesson. We already made sure there is enough space etc for the texts in different languages, so I don't think there will be a lot of formatting needed.
Benefits of a spreadsheet:
- Better overview for our translators as it is all in one document (they are now working in 6 documents at the same time). Besides that we can better tell which things need to translated instead of everything (example, slide titles, button names etc don't need to be translated)
- We were thinking of updating this project and adding a new chapter every 1 or 2 months. With 6 different lessons and translation documents this will more repetitive work every update
- The picking of the language can be inside the lesson. We can style it better, make it better integrated in the lesson and get also this data using the google analytics.

Besides that I also see this working for personalization (outside an LMS). We now use this for interactive videos that are connected to a spreadsheet, in which you can get some personlised data in. For example if PersonID=123, we can show their name, address, score, or other information we have about them. Based on this we can even tailer the elearning more to the needs and requirements this person has, like unlocking chapters, skipping slides or asking different quiz questions.

We tested it with parameters in the url. But that became a bit messy

But I understand that if SB is not build to dynamically load in external data, that might be a difficult request. Just checking out our options and maybe giving you inspiration for updates if more people would benefit from this

Thanks

Hi Marcel,
There's a forum post here that shows how to load in data from a csv file. You should be able to pull your data in using a similar method, and then unpack it. https://portal.smartbuilder.com/web/smartbuilder/forum/-/message_boards/message/468982

If you load it into a map, you can do things like {{lesson_text.en.text14}}. This will take some time and experiementation to get the formatting correct, so I would start with a small sample text like in your screenshot.

Hi,

This is so cool. I'm sure I can use this in a project in the future.
But I do see your concerns about doing a whole translation this way. I will stick to the normal translation way for now (although I'm fighting a bit with reimporting the translated xlf files, but I think that's just a mistake on the translator side)

Thanks for these suggestions