Vinay S. Patil: Configure Multiple Languages in MOSS

August 21, 2009

Configure Multiple Languages in MOSS

This article provides a detailed overview of the multilingual options and features available in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It starts with the concepts and moves on with an illustration of how to actually create a complete multilingual site.

Step 1: Install the language files on all WFE Operating Systems

This step is necessary to install the language specific files for the operating system like the Keyboard files and fonts etc. For this, go to the Regional and Language Options in the Control Panel, in the Languages tab; add the necessary supplemental language support which installs the necessary files needed

For example, if you need to provide sites in Arabic, you need to select 'Install files for Complex Script and Right to Left Languages'

Step 2: Install Office SharePoint Server 2007

Install MOSS in the desired language and run the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration wizard.

Step 3: Install Language Packs

Now you need to install the language pack of the desired language. Please note that language packs come in separate packages i.e. one language pack setup per installation, so if you need more than one language, multiple language packs need to be installed. Make sure the language pack is of the same language you need and you are installing the 'MOSS language pack' and not one of the 'WSS language packs'

Step 4: Rerun the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard

This should be done with the default options selected.
As soon as you successfully install a language pack in a particular language, a folder with the respective language ID is created in c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\template\ For example: If you are currently running the English version of MOSS and you install the Arabic language pack, you will now find two folders in this hierarchy, one is 1033 (for English- the default language) and the other is 1025 (the Arabic language).

Step 5: Create the site with the new language

You should notice that the site creation wizard now includes another option to select the language to create the site in.

Step 6: Enable Site Variations

1) Go to Site Settings->Site Collection Administration
2) Click 'Variations'
3) Select '/' to create variations for the top level site
4) Leave all other options to default settings and Click 'OK'

Step 7: Configure Variation Labels

1) Go to Site Settings->Site Collection Administration
2) Click 'Variation Labels'
3) On the' Variation Labels' screen, click 'New Label' and create an English label

4) On the' Variation Labels' screen, click 'New Label' and create an Arabic label

Step 8: Create Hierarchies

1) On the' Variation Labels' screen, click 'Create Hierarchies'
2) The wizard automatically creates hierarchies for sites and sub sites and pairs them as well.

Step 9: View the Variation Log

1) Go to Site Settings->Site Collection Administration
2) Click 'Variation Logs'
3) Look at the Variation Log Entries and find the pairing of sites

Step 10: Change the Browser Language and view the site in different languages

Now as the variation hierarchy is created, you can view the site in different languages (English and Arabic) in our case. For this, use the URLs you saw in the Variation Log .
One more thing to note is that if you use the default URL of the site, you will be redirected to the variation that corresponds to the default language of the browser. Try changing the browser language to Arabic and check. This shows that you can redirect different users to the same site in different languages based on user preferences.

Step 11: Edit the Page in source language and observe the results

You are now ready to go with multilingual sites created in MOSS. Try to add some content to the content editor web part by using the Edit Page option. After the change, don't forget to Publish.

After a few minutes, if you see the varied site in Arabic, you should find the same content copied there.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: hi that is very nice post.
Thank you for this information.; September 03, 2009
Anonymous said...: Does MOSS supports HINDI or Tamil or for the matter Indian regional languages? Does these language packs available?
Milind; September 16, 2009
Vinay S. Patil said...: If you have the language the set up avaliable then you can configure those languages.; September 16, 2009