Translation instructions

Updated 6 months ago

If you are interested in translating, join us in the the translation forum and the Discord Server translation channel. You can post in forum if you need more access, for example to add a new page or forum.

MuseScore desktop editor

Latest update see github wiki's Help translate MuseScore and Translating instrument names

The translation of the MuseScore software happens at Transifex.

How to translate

Login at https://www.transifex.com/signin/, or register in case you don't have a Transifex account.
Go to https://www.transifex.com/musescore/musescore/.
Click on the Join team button and select your language.
Once signed in, select your language and you will see all the available resources which can be translated.
The resources for the MuseScore software are MuseScore and Instruments.
If these are not at 100%, click on the resource.
Finally click on the blue Translate button.

How to test your translation

Start MuseScore and navigate to the menu Help > Resource Manager.
If an update is available for your language, download it, close and restart the software (or switch to another language, then back to the language you are working on, to refresh the translation).
Now check your translation. If anything is wrong or missing, update the translation on Transifex and repeat the update process.

Note: there is a delay of up to 15 minutes between Transifex and MuseScore. So wait a little after your last translation update before download the language update in the MuseScore Resource Manager.

Checking language files using Qt Linguist

Qt Linguist provides a much more detailed comparison between source and destination strings than what is offered by Transifex (e.g. leading or trailing spaces, matching special characters, that a string ends in the same punctuation mark).
The Qt Linguist interface gives the context of a string, e.g. the hierarchy (per file / function), grouping a string with other strings used in the same place. It makes the context more visible than the Context tab in Transifex.
You can download the Qt Linguist installer for Windows and MacOS) or the Linux package to check the translation files.
Location of the downloaded language files (relative to the you home directory).

Operating System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\MuseScore\MuseScore3\locale
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/MuseScore/MuseScore3/locale/
Linux	~/.local/share/data/MuseScore/MuseScore3/locale

Files to check
instruments_$LANG.qm
mscore_$LANG.qm
tours_$LANG.qm

where $LANG may be either the two-letter language code, e.g. nl, de, it, se, za or the locale, e.g. hi_IN or ca@valencia

When you open the file browser, change the file type filter from Translation Files to All Files (*)
At "Setting for Tours" dialog, accept the defaults and press OK.

Components and their update frequency

The translations of the main program (mscore), instruments and tours are updated every 5-15 Minutes, check here.

Transifex comments and issues

Creating Transifex comments

Transifex allows one to log comments against a string. The nature of the comment may be for themselves or others to ask for or provide clarification (e.g. is it a verb or noun).
NB: We strongly urge translators not to log issues in Transifex since it is not monitored regularly, but rather use our official and established channels, namely the MuseScore forums and Issue Tracker.

Handling Transifex issues by type

Anyone with Transifex access (Translator or higher role) can assist in handling these issues

You can search for open issues by searching/filtering for issue:open in the Transifex Search String box.
Answering the query or ask for more info.
Log an Issue in the MuseScore issue tracker if you agree that there is a problem and know what the issue is (e.g. no community discussion required).
- Put a reference to the issue tracker issue on the Transifex issue as a reply to the comment that raised it.
If you cannot answer the query or log an issue to fix, but understand the issue, take the issue to one of the forums (if the issue is not a Translation-related issue, consider using the General discussion forum.
- Put a reference to the forum post on the Transifex issue as a reply to the comment that raised it.
If the issue raised is not clear enough to you (or the wrong language), ask the person who raised the issue to take it to the General discussion forum. For a foreign language comment/query, translate the query using Google Translate and add as a comment / reference for others.
Ask on the Translation forum that the issue be Resolved.

Note on different types of issues and resolving them

An issue against mscore (the core GUI), Instruments or Tours does not have to be resolved if the action is that the string will be changing. If the string changes, it will be removed from Transifex (and all issues/comments that were created against it), and a new string will be created. Resolving the issue is optional.
If the string will not be changed, you will have to get the issue resolved.
A changed “MuseScore in Minutes” string will not trigger a delete and re-add, i.e. you need to get the issue resolved.

Resolving Transifex issues

Only the Project Maintainer (currently thomasbonte) can Resolve Transifex issues.
If you believe a query has been sufficiently handled (by yourself or someone else), please post a message on the Translation forum specifying the string with the issues that should be closed.
The test for whether you can resolve an issue is does anything else still have to happen on the issue?
When you resolve an issue the comments/issues/replies still remain for reference (for as long as the string exists).

MuseScore Start Center

The Start Center is the first window you see when starting MuseScore. It lists your most recent work at the left side, and at the right is the online connection with the sheet music shared by the MuseScore community, the Getting Started score, the video tutorials and more. This online connection is also translatable via Transifex.

Translating the Start Center

Go to https://www.transifex.com/musescore/musescore/ and sign in.
Scroll down and seek for your language.
Scroll down the resources list and select Start Center.
Finally click on the Translate button.

To see your translation in place, you will have to need to wait up to 24h as the Start Center is updated only once a day.

"Getting Started" tutorial score

To localize the "Getting Started" one-page interactive tutorial that appears in the Start Center:
1. Download the original English version of the Getting Started score.
2. Open in the score in MuseScore and replace all English text with your translation.
3. Upload the result to your online MuseScore account.
4. Become a member of the Getting Started Translations group, if you are not already.
5. Add your localized Getting Started score to the Getting Started Translations group.
6. Post a discussion in the group stating that you localized the Getting Started score, while stating your language.

MuseScore mobile apps for Android/iOS

Login at https://www.transifex.com/signin, or register in case you don't have a Transifex account.
Go to https://www.transifex.com/musescore-com/musescore-player.
Click on the Join team button and select your language.
Refresh the page and press the Translate button.
Select a language and start translating.

P.S. If you want to translate the texts into some other language (and you have good command of it), click the "Join team" link at https://www.transifex.com/musescore-com/musescore-player/dashboard , select this language and repeat steps 4-5.

MuseScore 4 Tutorials and related videos

The videos made available in the MuseScore 4 learning section are available at Amara (a website which provides a workspace for videos to be shared and where subtitles can be added/edited).

The links to the MuseScore 4 videos are:

musescore.org website, forum, handbook

Visit documentation for an overview of documentation.

To be able to translate site content or the handbook you need to have been enabled by a website admin, use the "contact us" link on the bottom left of the page and mention the desired language(s).

How to check the status of a translation

In the Translate menu (only visible to translators, see above), click on Website content link which shows you the current state of the translation for all the pages. This is very useful in finding pages which are awaiting translation.

How to translate a menu page

Start on the English interface of the website: http://musescore.org/en.
Click on the menu page you wish to translate.
Hit the translate tab at the top of the page.
You will see a table, which describes the translation state for the page.
Hit the language you wish to add or edit.
Replace all the English text with the translation.
Finally, hit the submit button at the bottom of the form.

After saving a new (not updated) translation of a menu page, the menu link which appears will be in English. The musescore.org admin will replace this with the translated link. You can always leave a message in the translation forum in case of problems.

How to translate the handbook

Follow these instructions closely, step-by-step!

To start the translation process of the handbook, go to the index page of the English handbook, hit the Translate tab at the top and pick your language. Next translate the English text.
It's important to translate the handbook in the exact order of appearance in the index page: top ones first and translate your way to the bottom.
Keep all the special markup in place such # [ { symbols.
Don't change the node:xxx links as they will automatically point to the translated pages instead of the original English ones. You may translate the text after title= in the link markup.
Don't replace images with a nationalized version. Don't rename or remove images on the original English page (they may be still in use on other translatesions), add nationalized images to the translated pages as a "Language dependent attachment". Use PNG whenever possible, GIF is animation is needed, avoid JPEG. Name the images consistenlty, append a _lang to the image filename if the images contains texts, e.g. image_en.png for the English version, image_sp.png for the spanish version.

Translate the website interface

All the textual strings on musescore.org can be translated. If you find an English string you want to translate, use the translate interface to search for the string and enter your translation. There are special strings that are not as simple to find, but once translated, they have a big impact on the localized version of musescore.org:

Homepage

Free Download
Version !Number

Various

D, m/d/Y - H:i, long time format. Legend: D == day, m == month as number, d == day as number, Y == year in 4 digits, H as 24h hour in digits, i as minutes in digits.
D, m/d/Y, medium time format. Legend, see above.

musescore.com website

Visit development for the ways to improve musescore.com the sheet music sharing site.

muse hub

Visit development for the ways to improve musehub.