How to Translate the Cart and Checkout Pages in WooCommerce

Want to translate your WooCommerce checkout page with ease?

While WordPress is a great website platform that offers many features out of the box, multilingual capabilities aren’t one of them.

Therefore, you’ll need to translate your checkout yourself or do so with the help of a translation plugin.

Two options for translating your WooCommerce checkout page include:

• A translation plugin like Weglot (beginner-friendly)  
• Manual string translation (intermediate technical knowledge required)

What's more, Weglot is officially a WooCommerce partner, so you can find us on their marketplace.

Here’s how to translate your checkout page using each of these methods:

How to Translate Your WooCommerce Checkout Page

Compared to doing a manual translation, the easier and quicker approach to translating your WooCommerce cart and checkout pages is to use our Weglot translation solution. It offers three different layers of translation features:

1. A first layer of high-quality machine translation using a proprietary mix of machine learning translations that is constantly being improved upon.
2. A collaborative layer where you invite your staff to your Weglot translation project for team edits and further translation refinement.
3. A final layer of professional translation and review by ordering translations from trusted Weglot translation partners, right from the Weglot dashboard!

Register for a Weglot account to get started. Then, take the following steps to translate your cart, checkout, and any other pages using Weglot:

Step One: Select Original and Destination Languages:

• After installing and setting up Weglot, go to the Weglot settings and select the original language of your WooCommerce store (e.g., English).
• Choose the language(s) you want to translate your store into (e.g., Spanish).
• Click "Save" to finalize the language settings.

Step Two: Create Static Cart and Checkout Pages:

• Go to your WordPress dashboard.
• Navigate to Pages > Add New.
• Create two new pages; name them "Cart" and "Checkout".

• Leave them empty; WooCommerce will automatically populate them with the necessary content.

Step Three: Assign Pages in WooCommerce Settings:

• Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced.
• Under the "Page setup" section, assign the "Cart" and "Checkout" pages you created to their respective WooCommerce page types.

• Save your changes.

Step Four: Verify Translations on Front-End

• Visit your WooCommerce store frontend.
• You should see a language switcher added to the bottom right corner of the screen.
• Use the language switcher to toggle between the original language and the translated language(s).
• Navigate to the cart and checkout pages to verify that they are translated correctly.

Top tip: Use the visual editor in the Weglot dashboard to preview how your translations will appear on your website. This is handy for checking if you need to change your cart or checkout page design to accommodate the translations.

Step Five: Add Team Members (optional)

• From the Weglot Dashboard, add team members to your Weglot project, or order professional translations.

Step Six: Translate Media in the Cart and Checkout Pages (optional)

• If you have images or even videos in your cart and checkout pages, use Weglot’s media translation features to specify replacement media URLs for them.
• For instance, if you have an image containing English text, you can provide a replacement image URL pointing to the same image – but containing French text instead – to be shown to French-speaking customers.

How to Translate Your WooCommerce Checkout Page with Manual String Translation

If you prefer to translate your checkout page manually, you can do so using string translation. This method utilizes Poedit and requires familiarity with file structures within WordPress and WooCommerce.

Follow these detailed instructions to manually translate your WooCommerce checkout page using Poedit:

1. Visit the Poedit website.
2. Download the appropriate version for your operating system (Windows, macOS, or Linux).
3. Install Poedit on your server by following the installation instructions. Access your website’s server via FTP or a file manager provided by your hosting provider and navigate to the WordPress plugin directory.
4. Look for the .po file for your desired language. You’ll typically find it in wp-content\plugins\woocommerce\i18n\languages. If it doesn’t exist, download the woocommerce.pot file to create a new translation file.
5. Open the WooCommerce .pot file on POEdit.
6. POEdit will prompt you to choose a language for your translation. Select the language you want to translate the checkout page into and Poedit will create a new .po file for your selected language.
7. Use the search bar in Poedit to find specific strings related to the checkout page, such as "Billing details", "Place order", etc.
8. Click on a string to select it. In the bottom part of the window, you will see a field to enter the translation.
9. After translating the necessary strings, save your translation. Poedit will generate a .po file (which you can edit) and a .mo file (which WordPress will use for translations).
10. Using an SFTP client, navigate to wp-content/languages/plugins/.
11. Create a folder named “woocommerce” if it doesn't already exist and upload both the .po and .mo files to this folder.
12. Go to your WooCommerce checkout page on the front-end of your website and ensure the translated strings are displayed correctly.

If any strings are not translated, return to POEdit to double-check and update the translations as needed.

While the manual POEdit method is comprehensive and provides control over the translation process, it can be time-consuming and is not the most advanced solution available.

For users looking for more advanced features, a dedicated WooCommerce translation plugin like Weglot will provide additional functionalities and automation.

Start Translating Your WooCommerce Checkout and Cart Pages With Weglot

Translating your WooCommerce store, especially the cart and checkout pages, is essential to cater to customers who speak different languages. These crucial pages can make the difference between a completed order and an abandoned cart.

Manual translation is complex, slow, and costly. Instead, opt for Weglot, a quick, advanced, budget-friendly solution. Seamlessly integrating with WordPress, Weglot provides high-quality translations in over 110 languages with no coding required. Collaborate easily with your team and external agencies to perfect your translations.

Join over 70,000 websites using Weglot. Sign up for a free trial and see how Weglot can effortlessly translate your WooCommerce cart and checkout pages today.