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Shopify

Translate your Shopify store and sell in multiple languages

Nina Eleftheriadou avatar
Written by Nina Eleftheriadou
Updated over a year ago

Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows anyone to sell online, at their retail location quickly, and everywhere in between. Transifex Live can make your Shopify store multilingual and sell your products worldwide. We have a live example of a translated Shopify store. Use the language dropdown at the bottom right to switch languages.

Below, you'll find instructions for localizing your Shopify store.

๐Ÿ“ Note: Before you begin, you must have a Transifex account and a project you will be associating with your Shopify site. If you have not already done so, sign up for Transifex here.


Adding a website

Before using Transifex Live, you must add a website to Transifex for translation, then install the Transifex Live JavaScript snippet on your site. For instructions on how to do this, please refer to this article.


Installing the Transifex Live snippet

Once you've gotten the Transifex Live snippet, the next step is to add it to your Shopify theme:

  1. From the left menu of Shopify, click on Online Store.

    shopify-dashboard.png#asset:3220

  2. Next, click on Themes if it's not already selected.

    shopify-themes.png#asset:3221

  3. Click the three dots on the right side of your current theme and then Edit HTML/CSS.

    shopify-edit-html.png#asset:3222

  4. Under Layouts, click on theme.liquid.

    shopify-theme-liquid.png#asset:3223

  5. Paste your Transifex Live JavaScript snippet before the </head> tag.

    shopify-theme-header.png#asset:3225

  6. Click Save, and you're done!

Now, you can begin saving and translating content!


Working with a staging site

While you can't officially create a staging instance of your Shopify site, you can duplicate your existing theme for testing purposes:

  1. From the left menu of Shopify, click on Online Store to head to your themes.

  2. Click the three dots on the right side of your current theme and hit Duplicate.

    shopify-duplicate-theme.png#asset:3231

    You'll see the copy of your theme added below the current theme.

    shopify-theme-copy.png#asset:3232

  3. Follow Steps 3-6 in the "Installing the Live snippet" section above and add your Transifex Live JavaScript snippet if you haven't done so before cloning your theme.

  4. Once you've added the Live snippet, find the copy of your theme and click on the Preview button to open up the theme.

  5. In your browser's URL bar, add &transifex to the end of the URL to launch the Transifex Live sidebar.

    shopify-preview-url.png#asset:3239


Approve, Translate, & Deliver

Now that Transifex Live is embedded in your page, you can use Transifex Live to save content to Transifex, translate in context, and publish translations on the fly.

Handling dynamic content

Dynamic content like dates, times, and counters (e.g., # of articles, # of comments, etc.) should not be translated. When approving phrases in Transifex Live, be sure to ignore these types of non-translatable dynamic content. If your platform lets you edit the theme, you can mark elements of your pages as non-translatable. To learn how, click here.


๐Ÿ’กTip

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