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How can I have several versions of a string (each with a different character limit) in one language?

Lukas Meier

Hi everyone,

we have the following situation: We have translations into several languages. So far so good. However, there's a catch: We need different versions for each language (a short, a medium and a longer version each with a character limit). Does Passolo provide us with a natural approach to handle this kind of scenario? So far, we've come up with the following (it is more like a work-around, though): We use English (Canada) for the short version, English (UK) for the medium lenght version and English (US) for the long version. Does any of you have a different or smarter idea to get this done?

Cheers, Lukas
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    Hello Lukas,

    Your problem is not related to software localization. It is a software internationalization topic related to the UI design process. The natural approach is that this scenario could (and should) be solved by your software engineering team. Localization takes resource files as input and delivers translated files. Resource files do usually contain key/value pairs and the key is used by developers to access the string during runtime. If there is just one key, you can deliver just one translation and in your case you have to select the shortest one. If the same string appears in different places (menus, dialogs, reports, etc.) of the software with different length limitations then developers have to store the string 3 times with different keys into the resource file.

    Simply adding 2 more key/value pairs into the translated file will not work as the software will not recognize the additional keys. Delivering multiple translations in one key/value pair is also not possible as the software will not know how to split and select the right translation. The method you have chosen is Ok if you need all strings in the complete files translated with a different length limitation but it is difficult to handle as the length limitations does apply to source strings, not to target languages. It becomes even more complex if not all key/value pairs need different length limitations.

    It would be quite helpful if other users share their experience. I would expect that most users solve these issues in the software development.
  • 0 in reply to Achim Herrmann
    I have to agree with Achim here. I had a similar issue but that was related to the same English literal (where dev had taken a shortcut to save time) that required different translations, based on the actual context. The literal was in English the term "on" referrring to a) activating a parameter and b) referring to a date. We had DEV add a separate literal in the source files and requested that the literal is commented so we know which translation is to be used for each instance.
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