TranslationHowto

How to create a new translation for cdrtfe

Translating cdrtfe into a new language is very easy. No programming skills are required. All you need is a simple text editor.

Location of the translations

All translations are located in the subfolder tranlations of cdrtfe's program folder, usually C:\Program Files\cdrtfe\translations (may vary depending on where cdrtfe is installed). This folder contains a cdrtfe_lang.ini which has a list of available languages and sets the default language. For each language there is a subfolder with an other cdrtfe_lang.ini (translation of cdrtfe) and cdrtfeShlEx_lang.ini (translation of the Shell Extension).

The main cdrtfe_lang.ini

This file consists of only one section. Currently (cdrtfe 1.5) it looks like this:

[Languages]
Default=Lang2
Lang1=German
Lang2=English
Lang3=Dutch
Lang4=Polish
Lang5=French
Lang6=Spanish
Lang7=Russian
Lang8=Italian
Lang9=Hungarian
Lang10=Slovak
Lang11=Czech
Lang12=Portuguese
Lang13=Japanese
Lang14=Portuguese (Brazilian)
Lang15=Chinese (simplified)
Lang16=Greek
Lang17=Arabic
Lang18=Swedish
Lang19=Chinese (Traditional)
Lang20=Korean
Lang21=Ukrainian

For each language you need a key of the form <label>=<language> in the section [Languages]. The corresponding translation is in the file cdrtfe_lang.ini in the subfolder named <language>.

The entry Default=<label> specifies the active language. The setting DefaultLanguage=<label> from the cdrtfe.ini overrides this setting.

The translation's cdrtfe_lang.ini and cdrtfeShlEx_lang.ini

Both files are located in the language specific subfolder and contain the translated captions and messages. Each file has two sections [Components] and [Messages]. Each line within these sections translate one caption or message.

• Keep %s and %d in the translation as they will be replaced at runtime.
• \n creates a new line.
• Within a section empty lines are not allowed.

Important: character encoding

cdrtfe ist not unicode capable! So the cdrtfe_lang.ini and cdrtfeShlEx_lang.ini have to be saved using ANSI as character encoding. Unicode (e.g. UTF-8) characters will not be displayed correctly.

Step-by-step instructions to create a new translation

Let's say, someone wants to translate cdrtfe into Latin. Here are the steps to do so:

1. Edit the main cdrtfe_lang.ini in C:\Program Files\cdrtfe\translations. Add a new line for your language, for this example: Lang22=Latin
2. Create a subfolder named latin in C:\Program Files\cdrtfe\translations.
3. Copy the cdrtfe_lang.ini and cdrtfeShlEx_lang.ini from an existing language into this new folder.
4. Translate each caption and message in both files.