With the Locale module, you can let the hosted service automatically translate various elements of the site into the language of your choice. You can even use the Locale module to change automatically-generated text to something other than the default provided by modules in the system.

Enabling Translation Suport

1. Click Administer (top menu) » Site Building » Modules.
2. Check the box next to "locale" in the list of modules.
3. give yourself permission to edit localization under Administer (top menu) » User management » Access control (you will already have it if you're the first user).
4. Click "Save configuration".

Translating the Site into a Different Language

1. Check out the list of translations that are compatible with your site. Be sure to filter the list to the Drupal version of the site you are running. Current hosted service sites are using Drupal 5. Older sites use Drupal 4.6.
2. Download the language(s) you want to your computer.
3. Uncompress the file you download.
4. Click Administer (top menu) » Site configuration » Localization.
5. You should then see the languages already listed in your settings. Click the import sub-tab.
6. Click the "Browse" button and find the translation file you downloaded in steps 1 and 2.
7. Select a language you wish to import the file "into". If you have not added the language to your supported list of languages, the system will add it for you then import the translation.
• You only need to add the file ending in .po. Any other files are documentation for that language file.
8. Select a Mode, that is, whether you want to replace the existing "strings" (words and phrases that the system automatically creates for you on the site) or whether you wish to keep the existing ones and only add new ones.
9. Click the "Import" button. The process may take a minute to import, so wait until the page is finished loading before proceeding.
10. Select which language you wish to be the default. This will show for 'anonymous' users, that is, those who are not logged in.
• You can choose to have multiple languages enabled (by checking the box in the "Enabled" column for each language you want to offer). Users will then be able to select which language they want by editing their user profile.

Creating Your Own Generated "Translation"

If you want to change the title of a block, or the text that is generated by the system, you can use localization to have your own custom text.

1. Click Administer (top menu) » Site configuration » Localization.
2. Click the add language.
3. Type in the language code (see the list of language codes available) and type in the English name of the language, then click the second "Add language" button.
• If you're changing the text from English to something else in English, you may want to choose en-US as the language code and "English (custom)" or whatever you want as long as it's not "English", whic his already taken by the system.
4. enable the language and select it as your default language.
5. browse around your site to populate strings database. This might seem like an unusual step but the Locale module needs to learn about the text you want to change.
6. Click the manage strings tab. (The word "strings" means the text that you can translate on your site.)
7. Search for the text you wish to replace. Note that the search is case-sensitive, so searches for "recent" will not show results that have "Recent" in them, for example.
8. Once you have a list of results, click the "edit" link next to the text you wish to change.
9. Type in the customized text you wish to replace the default with. Make sure you write the text in the language you created in step 3.
10. Click "Save translations".

Not having a "translation" does not mean the text will not be displayed. That is, if you're satisfied with what's there, the system will use the default.