Hello friends,

Do you intend to create a bilingual website using WordPress? Then you need to have an appropriate plugin that can manage the different languages and translations. I am sure that you are all familiar with the true power of WPML. And while it is the most proper way to create a bilingual (or even multilingual) website there are some solutions that are somehow left out in the dark. However they might surprise you in a very pleasant way.

In this post I am going to present one of these solutions. It is called qTranslate X.

What it does?

When you download, install and activate qTranslate X you will be able to configure a multilingual WordPress configuration with extreme ease and functionality. The final result will be a user-friendly website suitable for audiences from different countries who speak different languages.

How to use qTranslate X?

Like I already said you need to have the plugin activated. The next step is to configure it properly. But before you proceed with activation you need to be 100% sure that you don’t rely on any other multilingual plugins. This is extremely vital, friends! Otherwise you risk to have a conflict between these plugins that will result in a bad website functionality.

After these words of caution, you should continue with activation and initial settings. These are made on the Settings -> Languages menu in your WordPress dashboard. There you need to tell qTranslate X which languages are needed for your multilingual website.

Once you click on this menu you will be presented with the options for the “General Settings” tab:

You should add English as one of the languages that are to be enabled. Then proceed with adding more. My personal advice is to limit your website up to 3 different languages. However your target groups might be bigger and you may decide to add more.

One of these languages has to be set as default. In most cases that should be the English language. If a desired language is not listed you can always add it by choosing a two-letter “Language Code” – see the “Languages” tab.

After you are done with the language selection, you have to decide how your website will handle the different languages. Here you are presented with four different options:

• Query mode
• Pre-Path mode
• Pre-Domain mode
• Per-Domain mode

My personal advice matches the recommendation of the qTranslate X creators and it is to choose the Pre-Path mode that is the most SEO friendly solution of them all. When you select this then the URL address for each page will be: domain/language (en/de/fr, etc)/permalink structure for the post or the page.

The next step is to choose how qTranslate X will handle all untranslated content on your multilingual website. You can hide it. Or maybe you might want to show the displayed language prefix when the content is not available for the selected language. Another great option is to show the content in an alternative language when the translation is not available for the selected language.

The great thing here is that you may select multiple options in order to achieve the needed functionality for your multilingual WordPress website.

Two more steps await you on the General settings tab for qTranslate X:

• Whether or not to show language names in camel case;
• Whether or not to detect the language of the browser that the user has set up and thus redirect them to the respective language of your website;

The next tab is the “Advanced tab”.

Here you need to define:

• the post types that should be available for translation – post, page or attachments;
• the flag image path – this is the path that contain the flags for the different countries;
• which links are to be ignored;
• define the head inline CSS;
• adjust cookie settings;
• updated Gettext databases – this is very useful, because if you choose to activate this feature then qTranslate X will check the WordPress Localization Repository every week automatically and thus you will have the latest Gettext databases for your website;
• adjust date/time conversion;
• adjust the option translations;
• editor mode options – manage the ways of translating your content in WordPress;
• LSB style options;
• highlight style options;

The next tab is called “Integration” and it is intended to ensure the proper integration between your theme and your plugins.

There are detailed instructions available under the official integration guide (a link is provided in the tab).

The main configuration options here are:

• configuration files list;
• custom configuration;
• custom fields;
• custom filters;
• compatibility functions;

The next tab is dedicated to Import/Export.

Here you may choose from the following options:

• To convert the database in order to match your content to the requirements of qTranslate X or simply to leave the database as it is. Bear in mind that the conversion processes on this tab are irreversible. That is why you should make a full database backup before proceeding (in case you decide to);
• Migration options from different plugins: qTranslate, mqTranslate, qTranslate Plus. For WPML you will need to install additional plugin (a link is provided in the tab) in order to import the data successfully;
• Reset qTranslate – a set of different options is provided;

The final tab is called “Languages” and here you can see and manage all the needed languages for the proper usage of qTranslate X.

You may enable or disable languages as well as add new ones and assign a proper flag to them.

Now that you have done all configurations (and especially if you use the default options) you will get an improved text/visual editor for your WordPress posts/pages with the new language options so that you can easily create stunning unique multilingual content.

And that concludes this short review for qTranslate X. There is definitely a great potential in using this plugin and I would suggest to give it a try. It may surprise you! Please make sure that you read the detailed guides on using this wonderful plugin. They are provided on this URL: click here.

So now I turn to you, friends. Will you try qTranslate X? And if you have already done this, please share your experience with this plugin in the comments below.

See you soon, friends.