Create Localized Files

Create Localized Files writes the translated versions of the files in your project: localized EXE and DLL files, satellite assemblies, resource-only DLLs, or translated resource files, depending on the format and the output settings.

Create the files

Choose Project > Create Localized Files (F5). To create the files for one file of the project, use Create Localized in its shortcut menu in the Navigation pane.
Under Languages to export, select the languages and click OK.

Items without a translation keep the original text. Items you excluded for a language are left out of its files. See Exclude from localized.

Where the files go

By default the localized files are created next to the original files, in a folder for each language, for example de-DE\MyApp.exe. .NET satellite assemblies, resource-only DLLs, and resource files follow the naming that the platform expects. To change the location, set the Output Folder of the project or the output file name pattern of a file; patterns use macros such as $(CultureName).

For Win32 and Delphi files you can create localized files, resource-only DLLs, or multilingual files. See Output Options.

Some applications need settings to load the localized files. See the guide for your platform on the Lingobit website and Running a non-Unicode application.

Checks before writing

If Validation before Create Localized is set to Warn or Block on errors, the enabled checks run first; with Block on errors, the files are not created when a check reports an error. See Validation settings.

Localizer also checks that every string can be written in the encoding of its localized file. Strings with characters the encoding does not support are listed in the Output panel as errors, with these characters. The files are still created and the unsupported characters are replaced; DFM files are not written. From the command line, such errors give a non-zero exit code.

DLGINIT encoding errors

DLGINIT strings used to initialize controls such as combo boxes are stored as encoded bytes, not UTF-16. Even a Unicode application can contain these resources. If Create Localized Files reports unsupported characters, check the output encoding and the reported characters. Use text that the encoding supports, for example by translating it into the target language. If the required text cannot be represented, the application developer can change the application to load these strings from Unicode resources instead of DLGINIT. Changing the encoding alone is only appropriate when the application reads the strings using that encoding.

Trial version

Localized files created by the trial contain a Trial marker: up to two translated strings in each file end in _Trial. See Trial Limitations.

To test the result, use Run Localized. From the command line, use -create. See Command line interface.