About importing language packs
Creating custom language packs enables you to change the language used in Brightspace to reflect your organization's branding or terminology. You can also create custom language packs to translate Brightspace into other languages or dialects.
When you create a language pack, you must select whether it has a parent language in order to determine which language the system defaults to when a language term has no translation value. If you create a language pack based on a default language, the parent language is the language from which you translate terms. If you do not select a parent language during import, missing translation terms default to the system's native language.
D2L strongly recommends that you create new language packs based on a parent language and edit them using the Manage Languages tool.
If you need to import a language pack, it must be a .zip file containing .xml files that follow a specific format. Use the sample language file on the Import Languages page or export an existing language pack to ensure you meet our requirements.
Import a language pack
If you want to have a backup of your previous terms, instead of replacing an existing language pack, create a new language pack with the same name and set the older version to inactive. Custom terms in the import packages retain custom value designation. As a result, you can differentiate between custom overrides and values that were part of the original language pack. Imported terms replace any previously existing custom values. If there was no previous custom value, the terms are added as new custom values. The default value column in the user interface contains the parent language default value.
- In the organization you want to import a language pack for, from the Admin Tools menu, click Language Management > Import Languages.
- In the Import File area, click Browse. Locate your .xml file. Click Open.
- In the Import Action area, do one of the following:
- To replace an existing language pack with the file you are importing, select Update existing language. From the Language to Update drop-down list, select the language pack you want to replace.
- To create a new language pack with the file you are importing, select Create new language. In the Name field, enter your language's name. From the Parent Language drop-down list, select the parent language for the language pack.
- Click Import.
About exporting a language pack
Language packs are exported as .zip files containing .xml files for each of the tool packages. It is also possible for the zip file for new language packs to contain only updated (custom) terms within each XML file. The .xml files should follow these conditions:
- Only change the default value text. If you change other information, such as the tool, package, collection, or term name, the system will not know where to use the term.
- Do not change the names of .xml files
- Do not format text
- Do not add language terms
To avoid the risk of creating errors in the .xml files, D2L suggests editing language packs using the Language Management tool.
Export a language pack
It is possible to export all terms in a language pack, a selection of terms based on selected search terms, or the updated (custom) terms within each XML file.
Custom terms in the packages no longer become new default values; rather they retain custom value designation. As a result, you can differentiate between custom overrides and values that were part of the original language pack. Small language packs that contain only the custom language terms can help mitigate the disruptive impact of importing and exporting language packs.
Depending on the type of lang terms you want to export, you follow a different process.
- In the organization where you want to export a language pack, from the Admin Tools menu, click Language Management.
- Click the Export Language icon for the language pack you want to download.
- Do one of the following:
- To export all terms, in the Export Language dialog, click the link for your .zip file. Then, save the .zip file to your computer.
- To export terms with custom values, click Export Custom Values.
- To export specific terms, enter a search term in the search field. Select the search parameters, tool package, and collection you want to export and click. Select the terms you want to include in the export package. Click Export.