Translation widget for WordPress.com blogs

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There are code restrictions on WordPress.com blogs. The software is programmed to strip some codes like Javascript to preserve security.  WordPress.com is a multi-user platform which means we all share the same underlying files and bad script introduced on one blog could bring down many.

When looking for a translation widget last year I uncovered the fact that although the Google translation widgets could not be used there was a workaround. You can view it in action on my Translation page and it can also be accessed by clicking the “Translation available” link in the widget at the top of my sidebar. The code I used  courtsey of fellow blogger ismailimail produces a 3 column table providing 53 language links. I simply copied the code, replaced the blog URL in the code I was given with my own blog’s URL,  created a static page, pasted the code into the HTML editor, and published the page.

Well when I was out surfing the internet I found a Free Website translation button.

Free Website translation at the click of a mouse – free and without registration!

Fully automatic website translation is now possible and all at the click of a mouse!  Free-Website-Translation.com offers a homepage translator service/tool for everyone.  Simply create a button (widget) for your homepage that allows visitors to your site to immediately translate the website into their own language.

With the translation quality of Google™ Language tools, homepage translation is available for everyone – fully automatic and into over 20 languages.  Web page translation has never been so easy!

If you click the big “get your button” button on the site and use the code provided it will be a Javacript code that will be stripped out by the wordpress.com software.

But if you copy the code that I post below into a text widget, or copy and paste the code into the HTML editor on a post or on a page it will work.

Note:  Make sure that when you copy the code into your text widget or blog post the code’s double quotation marks are not “curly” but “straight” quotation marks.  The fontin this theme a serif font which uses curly quotation marks.  Copy and paste the code,  but before clicking “save” or “publish” check whether the quotes came out in a “curly” format and if so, simply re-type the quotation marks so they are “straight”.

<a id=”ftwtranslation_button” style=”border:0;” href=”http://free-website-translation.com/”><img src=”http://free-website-translation.com/img/fwt_button_en.gif&#8221; alt=”Website Translation Widget” /></a>

translate button code

To see how your readers can use this click the TRANSLATION button.

Website Translation Widget

Once you are on the site scroll down past the “get your button” and  locate the box illustrated below.  Select the Original and Target languages and then type a URL into the Website address box.  Click the Translate! button and Google translate will do the rest.

Now you can go back copy the code I provided above and use it in a text widget on your own blog.  Happy blogging! :)

free website translation button





97 thoughts on “Translation widget for WordPress.com blogs”

  1. Pingback: Language barrier no more | Ken Hætta på nett

  2. Pingback: WordPress.com Multilingual Blogs | one cool site

  3. Hi timethief,

    I created a translation page using the code you suggested in a WP forum, here:

    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/multi-languages-of-the-same-theme?replies=8#post-551125.

    I’ve replaced you’re URL with mine and it works fine, but the table came out very cramped. You indicated that you merely pasted the code into a page. I did that and (unlike your result) got a crowded table, with very little space between with languages.

    Here’s my unpublished page: http://songbook1.wordpress.com/?page_id=99550&preview=true

    Because it’s so condensed, centering the table is another issue. I found the following code in a forum

    It worked when I first tried it, now it fails.

    • Results of attempts to change the width of table columns:

      1. Dragging the corner of the table, which works fine for images, fails to hold with the table. The modifications are deleted upon update.

      2. Using the HTML code WIDTH=”100%” stretches the table to fill the page (I haven’t tried other percentages) and the update does make the desired modification appear on the page. But I wonder if it will hold since the change disappears (in the editor) when you switch back to visual mode, before or after updating.

  6. Thank you Timethief! You are so helpful and fast. I believe it is going to help me to have what I was looking for a long time. Thanks again.

  7. Your blog is a really a cool site! You helped me a lot with the translation tips. I copied your code and create my very own page and i love it!! Thanks to you and your friend, who created the code. I will be following you!

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  13. Thanks, now I undestood how it works. The website of the Garlyng zoo they give as an example, displays some selected languages and you don´t have to put the website url. I thought it would be the same. Maybe I will try also your static page to see it in action on my site.

  14. Hello, thanks for all those great tips. I sitll have one question though. I did follow the stepts (had to change that Curly in the double quotations mark) and create a text widget, it didn´t worked as expected. The button in my blog page don´t translate, it just make a link to the free website translation. And I also wasn´t able to choose more than one language in the “targets language”.

    • I visited your blog and used your translation widget. IT’s working for me and I get a selection of about 50 languages I can choose from.

  16. Hi, thank you for providing this information. Is it true that a person would have to enter my web address into the free web site translation page for me them to get the web site translated? It won’t just translate my actual page. If so, it’s still cool. I just saw my page in German. I thought that was pretty cool.

    • Yes the web address must be entered.
      Visitors click the widget and then select:
      (1) Original Language
      (2) Target Language
      Then they enter the (3) Website address and that’s it.

  19. Thank you so much for this… I’ve been needing a website translator widget or anything that would work and this does. I created an invisible static page and created a widget that linked to the page…

    You are a life saver… Truly!

    • Hi Jenn,
      I have deleted your string of other comments on this angst about opening the widget in another window. I am sorry but I don’t know how to help, and I don’t find this to be an issue at all, as we can all use our browsers to open links in another window or tab at will.

  21. On that translation free website box – I noticed it doesn’t open in a new window for either the widget version or the one I put on my “translate” page. Perhaps I missed that and am too bloggy eyed at this point – but thought I’d ask if there’s a fix on that. Thanks again. Jenn

  22. Hey! I finally figured it out. Back and forth from forum to here and back again. The text I copied from your post actually put double quotations in several times. (I saw that comment above somewhere.) On the final try, there were single (curly) quotations, which I removed and replaced. And, yes indeed, it worked!!

    Before I figured that out, I used the code from the Free Website Translation site (w/o using your code in the post). It stripped the javascript – but provides exactly the same button which I was able to place on the top of my sidebar. Since it works in its stripped form, I figure it’s ‘safe’? Right?

    I jotted some notes on my “Translate” page as I was working through all of this. I mention your blog and the forum – FYI.

    Thanks! A bunch!

    • Hi there,
      I’m so glad you figured this out. Curly quotes drive us crazy and some themes automatically change the stright quotes we type into them. arrgghhh! Granted the button requires visitors to scroll down and selct but it’s the best we can do without Javacript. Yes, your button works. I clicked it to check. :)

  25. hi timethief, I installed your translator page in my blog and it works perfectly fine. thank you for sharing the code. :) i forgot where it was posted here in your site, but anyway thanks again. :)

  26. To those people who are having trouble getting this to work, make sure that when you copy the code into your text widget or blog post the code’s double quotation marks are not “curly” but “straight” quotation marks, as timethief mentioned in one of the comments. If you notice, the font timethief used on this site is a serif font which uses curly quotation marks. This formatting can get copied over along with the code and mess things up when you hit save. Instead, copy and paste the code, then before clicking “save” or “publish” check whether the quotes came out in a “curly” format and if so, simply re-type the quotation marks so they are “straight” and you should be good. Or, at least, that is what worked for me.

  27. Ciao timethief!

    Thanks for this great post. I copied and pasted the link you provided into a text widget, however when I click on the translate button (which actually doesnt appear) I get a 404 message. Any advice?
    Thanks in advance.

  28. Hi Timethief,

    I stumbled upon this website and it was really helpful! I have been searching for a translation gadget for WP. I did as you said and it worked from the beginning =) Thank you.
    Unfortunately the translation isn´t that good, those who translated must have been really tired lol, but that´s not your fault.

    I wish you a great day, today here in Sweden, we have our NationalDay. (June 6th).
    Take Care and thanks again for great help.

  29. I am using twenty-ten and had the same problem as others did with the double-quotes and very strange disappearing bits of code when I tried to save draft of the page I was testing it on.

    Ended up using the translation.com code and it does work….but only if pasted into visual editor. Funky things happened when I tried pasting into html.

    Anyway…it works on a page if pasted into visual editor not html and it does work when pasted in a text widget. The original translation.com code…not the wordpress.com friendly code you provided. It makes NO sense…but there you go. Thanks for the tip…(this and others).

    Course what I really want is that nifty translation page you have happening….VERY sweet!

  30. Copying and pasting, but when I click save, the code is shortened and ” ” duplicate and it still says link broken. The code from the website uses javascript. I guess I really don’t need a translate button.

    • I cannot explain why copying and pasting the code I provided in the post above works on my blog but not on yours. It’s a mystery to me. :(

      Perhaps what’s happening is the theme you us is changing “standard double quotes” to curly quotes. That’s all I can think of that would cause this.

  31. The code isn’t working for me, either. When copied into the text widget, the sidebar only shows a x website button. When I click it, it says the link is broken.

    @barryb64 what specific changes did you have to make? I tried tweaking it, but I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to HTML. Thanks!

  32. I had the same problem with the ” marks – re-typing them before you save seems to do the trick.

    Personally I would add target=”_blank” to the code. You don’t want your readers to wander off into the ether and forget the way back.

  34. Hi Time,

    Finally, my site has gone multi lingual. I have a question, though. How do others find out my site can be translated to their language? Thanks to Sitemeter, I know there have been a few visitors from non English speaking country but not much.

    • I simply place my translation widget in the top widget in my sidebar. If you wish you can create and publish a post that announces your blog has translation capability.

  35. Hi Time,

    Thanks to both you and our Swedish friend Tim. I’m on my way to making my site multi lingual. I had the same problem as Tim. There was indeed an unneeded quote in the img src tag. I also had to play with the top portion. Here’s what I did:

    When I did a save for the text widget, some quotes got added. I had to experiment to get it right. Remove a wrong quote and items got stripped out. The above code is the one I’m now using. Hope this helps.

  37. Hi! I tried to copy the code into a widget but it doesn’t work – on my blog it only says “Website” and when I click the link the site cannot be found… What could be wrong?

    Thanks a lot!
    Regards from Sweden

  39. Thanks TT – I went to the translation site and copied the script and then added a widget with the script in my Blogger site. Seems to work quite fine there too. I know that I have some cousins in Italy that check in to my blog and they always use a translator. Hopefully the button will make it more user friendly for them.

  40. THANK YOU!

    Am in need of French texts…
    Can’t wait to try it!

    And, it looks like I’ll be heading for Italian translations in the near future!

  41. Congratulations for the valuable information, the translation of pages here on WordPress is finally getting easier, thanks to the brilliant people like you. I am a migrant from space live and think I was lucky to find just the tutorials, I am learning from his teachings. A warm hug from Brazil.

  44. Timethief, I dont know how you do it, but you always seem to be reading my mind! I’ve been poking around looking for a way to do this for a while, thanks for coming to the rescue!

    • Hi Mark
      I’m glad this hit the spot for you. :) It’s not perfect but I think most wordpress.com bloggers will do prefer using a button as opposed to using a translation page workaround.

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