Lokalise is a project-based translation management system. A project is a collection of languages, keys, translation values, screenshots attached to these keys, contributors who have access to this project, and settings.

Usually, a single project contains translations for a single application, website, or game. We recommend keeping keys and translations for all platforms (like web and mobile) in one project for convenience. Upload iOS, Android, frontend, backend, and API language files – everything related to a certain app or website – to the same project.

Every project belongs to exactly one Lokalise team. A team is a collection of projects, team users, and settings. Every team has a separate subscription plan.

You can see that a project belongs to a team, whereas keys belong to a single project, and can contain one or more translation values for different languages.

To create a project, open the main dashboard and click New project:

Every Lokalise project is created from scratch, and currently, we do not provide a feature like "project templates." But you have two alternatives:

After pressing New project, you'll be asked to choose the project type:

Currently, we support three project types:

You can find all the supported file formats in the corresponding articles collection. Please note that you cannot change the type after the project is created.

After choosing the project type, you'll be presented with the following dialog:

Let's discuss the available options (most of these can be adjusted after the project is created):

Once you are ready, click Create project and a new project will be created for you!

Each project has a unique alphanumeric ID that is generated upon project creation. Each project URL contains this ID, for example:

You can also find this ID in the project settings:

Please note that the project ID cannot be modified.

This ID is used when referring to a project with Lokalise API or CLI. If you are not planning to use these developer tools, then most likely you won't need the project ID and knowing only its name should be enough.

That's a good question! The next steps will depend on what you are trying to achieve. Let's explore some options.

You might want to adjust your project settings. To do that, click More > Settings in the top menu:

Here you can change your project name, description, enable or disable additional features, create project snapshots (backups), set up automation rules, and perform other actions.

After adjusting your project settings, you'll probably want to upload your content to start translating. Go to the Upload page:

Here, you'll need to choose one or more files to upload and adjust the uploading settings.

When creating the project, you have already chosen one base language and one or more target languages. Also, when you upload translation files, all missing languages will be created automatically in your project. However, you might still need to add even more languages, and this is very simple to do.

Click on the Languages dropdown and choose New language:

Then choose one or more languages from the dropdown and click Add:

Once you've uploaded one or more translation files, you can return to the project editor:

One important question is: what happens once my translation file is uploaded to Lokalise? How will my data be stored and organized?

First of all, let's discuss some important terminology.

This is a file that contains your translation data. It can be a regular DOCX file or a JSON file that stores data in a key-value format.

The term "translation key" generally used when talking about key-value formats. A key acts as a placeholder in the application source code and is replaced with the corresponding translation value when the app is served to the end user. The actual value depends on the user's locale preferences.

For example, your app's source code can have an index.hello key, and this key has two translation values stored inside separate files: "Hello" (for English) and "Sveiki" (for Latvian). When the app is served to the user, the index.hello key is replaced with one of the values depending on the user's locale.

The idea is slightly different when talking about DOCX, PPTX, and other document-type files that do not employ the key-value storage. In this case, Lokalise automatically generates some alphanumeric identifiers for every part of the document.

For example, we can say that every paragraph in a Word document is a single "key". Or perhaps every PowerPoint slide item (heading, subheading, text) is also a key.

A value is basically a string of text translated into a single language. One translation key can have multiple translation values depending on how many languages you are planning to support.

So, if your Lokalise project has five languages, then every translation key will have five translation values.

In terms of Lokalise, a platform is an attribute that can be assigned to a translation key. There are four platforms:

Each key must belong to at least one platform but nothing prevents you from assigning a single key to multiple platforms. This is very convenient when you have both Web and mobile app, and the same translations should be used in both apps.

Speaking simply, a platform determines which file formats the key will be exported for. Thing is, when you are going to download translations from Lokalise back to your PC, you'll have to choose an output file format, and our platform currently supports 20+ formats. These formats are separated by platform, so for example .json is a Web format, whereas .strings is an iOS format.

Therefore, if a key belongs to the Web platform, it will be exported when the .json format is chosen but it will be ignored when the .strings format is utilized (however there's a way to override this behavior).

So, what exactly is going to happen when you upload your translation files to Lokalise? We'll parse these files and extract all key-value pairs along with additional attributes (comments, descriptions, extra attributes). Based on the file format, keys will be assigned to the corresponding platforms.

If you are uploading a Word file, then we'll split the text into paragraphs, and each paragraph will act as a key. A similar thing will happen for other document file types.

Keys and values will be displayed in the following way:

So, what's going on here?

Now we can create a simple hierarchy:

If you're working with a team, then you'll need to invite more people to the project, right? To do that, go to the Contributors page:

Here, you'll be able to add one or more people to the project and adjust their access rights.

Now that the contributors are invited, you'll probably want to assign some work to them. To do that, go to the Tasks page:

On this page, you'll be able to create a new task, choose translations to include, and assign this task to specific contributors.

If your content was initially hosted on a third-party platform, like a GitHub repo, WordPress website, or Zendesk Guide, you'll probably need an easy way to perform content exchange. That's why we've introduced Lokalise apps that enable you to connect with numerous services and tools easily. To get started, go to the Apps page:

Choose one of the apps and install it!

After you're done working with translations, you'll probably want to download them back to your project. To do that, go to the Download page:

Here, you'll need to choose an output file format, the language to include, and adjust other options.

We archive inactive teams and the corresponding projects on a regular basis. However, all your data is still preserved. Please check the Archiving inactive teams article to learn more about this process and how you can unarchive your projects.