Working with multiple languages

Atlas can be populated with sites in multiple different languages. There are two sides to this – the out of the box Microsoft 365 and SharePoint elements and the Atlas elements. Microsoft 365 and SharePoint have translations provided by Microsoft for a large number of different languages.

You can review the languages supported by Microsoft for SharePoint Online at this link: Languages supported by SharePoint (microsoft.com)

This translation feature is applied to all SharePoint and Microsoft 365 elements such as the ribbon, Settings menu, Site contents and Site settings menus:

We provide some general recommendations for multilingual organisations here: Recommendations for using multiple languages

In this article:

• Supported Languages
• Enable specific languages for Atlas (3.3+)
• Enable specific languages for the Term Store
• Translations for Atlas features

Supported Languages

Atlas 2.X - 3.2

English, French and Spanish.

Atlas 3.3+

English, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, and Spanish.

Enable specific languages for Atlas (3.3+)

To configure the languages you need available in your workspaces you'll need to be a SharePoint Administrator in your Microsoft 365 tenant.

1. Go to Atlas, then click on the My Atlas (A) button in the top right, and choose Settings:
   
2. In the Settings menu choose Language:
   
3. From this panel you can now select or deselect the languages you want to make available for Atlas. Please be aware that English cannot be deselected:
   
4. Once you're happy with your choices click Apply at the bottom of the panel.

Enable specific languages for the Term Store

If you need to translate your Global Navigation and Metadata tags, you'll also need to activate those languages in the Term Store.

Translations for Atlas features

Atlas itself supports a limited number of languages compared to SharePoint itself, listed later in this article based on your Atlas version. We are continuing to add languages over time.

Each Information Centre is assigned a specific language at the time of creation and this cannot be changed. You can create new Information Centres from Atlas ConneX. The language chosen for a specific Information Centre affects the following types of label in the front end of the system:

• Atlas menu labels and tooltips
• Add It instructions, field names and tooltips
• Web Part titles, navigation elements and tooltips
• Search scope names

Atlas does not provide translation features for content, and content can be created in any language in any Information Centre. We would note that it is usually best to create and manage all content in the same language as the Information Centre where it is stored, but for Communications workspaces Microsoft also provide a feature to manually translate pages for different languages. You can learn more about that here: Enable Translations for News and Pages in a Communications Workspace