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Localization using spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are one of the most common formats for localizing games. In Godot, spreadsheets are supported through the CSV format. This guide explains how to work with CSVs.

The CSV files must be saved with UTF-8 encoding without a byte order mark.

Advertencia

By default, Microsoft Excel will always save CSV files with ANSI encoding rather than UTF-8. There is no built-in way to do this, but there are workarounds as described here.

We recommend using LibreOffice or Google Sheets instead.

Formatear

Los archivos CSV deben ser formateados así:

claves	<lang1>	<lang2>	<langN>
KEY1	string	string	string
KEY2	string	string	string
KEYN	string	string	string

The "lang" tags must represent a language, which must be one of the valid locales supported by the engine, or they must start with an underscore (_), which means the related column is served as comment and won't be imported. The KEY tags must be unique and represent a string universally. By convention, these are usually in uppercase to differentiate them from other strings. These keys will be replaced at runtime by the matching translated string. Note that the case is important: KEY1 and Key1 will be different keys. The top-left cell is ignored and can be left empty or having any content. Here's an example:

claves	en	es	ja
GREET	Hola, amigo!	Hello, friend!	Hola
ASK	¿Como estás?	How are you?	Cómo estás
BYE	Adiós	Adiós	Adiós
QUOTE	"Hola" dijo el hombre.	"Hola" dijo el hombre.	"Hola" dijo el hombre

El mismo ejemplo es mostrado debajo como un archivo de texto plano separado por comas, lo que debería ser el resultado de editar lo anterior en una hoja de cálculo. Cuando se edita la versión de texto plano, asegúrate de cerrar entre comillas cualquier mensaje que contenga comas, saltos de línea o comillas, así las comas no son interpretadas como delimitadores, los saltos de línea no crean nuevas entradas y las comillas no son interpretadas como caracteres envolventes. Asegúrate de escapar de cualquier entrecomillado que pueda contenerse precediéndolo con comillas. De modo alternativo puedes seleccionar otros delimitadores aparte de comas en las opciones de importación.

keys,en,es,ja
GREET,"Hello, friend!","Hola, amigo!",こんにちは
ASK,How are you?,Cómo está?,元気ですか
BYE,Goodbye,Adiós,さようなら
QUOTE,"""Hello"" said the man.","""Hola"" dijo el hombre.",「こんにちは」男は言いました

Specifying plural forms

Since Godot 4.6, it is possible to specify plural forms in CSV files.

This is done by adding a column named ?plural anywhere in the table (except on the first column, which is reserved for translation keys). By convention, it's recommended to place it on the second column. Note that in the example below, the key column is the one that contains English localization.

en,?plural,fr,ru,ja,zh
?pluralrule,,nplurals=2; plural=(n >= 2);,,
There is %d apple,There are %d apples,Il y a %d pomme,Есть %d яблоко,リンゴが%d個あります,那里有%d个苹果
,,Il y a %d pommes,Есть %d яблока,,
,,,Есть %d яблок,,

Nota

Automatic Control translation is not supported when using plural forms. You must translate the string manually using tr_n().

Specifying translation contexts

Since Godot 4.6, it is possible to specify translation contexts in CSV files. This can be used to disambiguate identical source strings that have different meanings. While this is generally not needed when using translation keys LIKE_THIS, it's useful when using plain English text as translation keys.

This is done by adding a column named ?context column anywhere in the table (except on the first column, which is reserved for translation keys). By convention, it's recommended to place it on the second column, or after ?plural if it's also used. Note that in the example below, the key column is the one that contains English localization.

en,?context,fr,ru,ja,zh
Letter,Alphabet,Lettre,Буква,字母,字母
Letter,Message,Courrier,Письмо,手紙,信件

Nota

Automatic Control translation is not supported when using context. You must translate the string manually using tr() or tr_n().

Importador CSV

Godot tratará los archivos CSV como traducciones por defecto. Los importará y generará uno o más archivos de recursos de traducción comprimidos junto a ellos.

La importación también agregará la traducción a la lista de traducciones a cargar cuando se ejecute el juego, especificado en project.godot (o en los ajustes del proyecto). Godot también permite cargar y eliminar traducciones en tiempo de ejecución.

Select the .csv file and access the Import dock to define import options. You can toggle the compression of the imported translations, and select the delimiter to use when parsing the CSV file.

Be sure to click Reimport after any change to these options.

Loading the CSV file as a translation

Once a CSV file is imported, it is not automatically registered as a translation source for the project. Remember to follow the steps described in Configuración de la traducción importada so that the translation is actually used when running the project.