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
• Enable specific languages for the Term Store
• Set translations for a term
• Translations for Atlas features
• Translations for pages
  
  

Supported Languages

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

Enable specific languages for Atlas

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 first need to activate those languages in the Term Store. To do this, you'll need to be a Term Store Administrator.

Go to the Term Store, then click on the top node of your term store, "Taxonomy", then on the right you can see the default and additional languages. Click Edit and add the "working languages" you need - this will now allow terms to be translated into the languages selected.

Set translations for a term

To set translations for a term, select the Term in the left panel, then on the right you can see Translations and synonyms. Click Add:

Select the language for your translation, type or paste the translation into the box, then click Save at the bottom of the panel to add your translation:

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Translations for Atlas features

Atlas itself supports a limited number of languages compared to SharePoint itself, listed above in this section: Supported Languages

Each workspace is assigned a specific language at the time of creation based on your tenant language and this cannot be changed. The language 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 workspace.

Translations for pages

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