Skip to main content
Project editor

Powerful online editor to handle your keys, translations, screenshots, comments, and more.

Ilya Krukowski avatar
Written by Ilya Krukowski
Updated over 3 months ago

The project editor is what you see when you open a project on Lokalise. This is your main workspace where you'll perform translations, manage keys, screenshots, languages, add comments, and perform other actions.

Project editor overview

Below you will find a brief summary of the main controls. Each button also has a tooltip, so simply hover your mouse over each element to see a short description.

Legend

Please note that certain elements might not be visible in your case depending on the project settings and access rights.

  1. Checkboxes: select one, multiple or all keys in the list and perform an action on them.

  2. Documentation, API reference, and "Contact support" widget.

  3. Filter to see only specific strings or keys.

  4. Key sorting, e.g., first added or last added.

  5. Key and base words counter: shows how many keys are displayed using the current filter(s). It also shows how many words are there for the base language.

  6. The name of your current project branch. Click on this dropdown to choose a different branch.

  7. Enable display of placeholders/HTML tags as blocks.

  8. Display spell check results.

  9. View and manage translation files.

  10. Display key references as text.

  11. Bookmark your position in the project.

  12. Project main menu.

  13. Add a new translation key to the project.

  14. Search keys by name or part of a name.

  15. Find/Replace strings within the project.

  16. View and manage project languages, add new languages to the project.

  17. Magic scroll that helps navigate the keys quickly.

  18. Quality assurance issues (hover your mouse pointer over this icon to learn more).

  19. Translations for the given key.

  20. Screenshot attached to the key.

  21. Translation key name (click to open key editor), linked platforms, and tags.

  22. Quick actions for the given translation key.

  23. Manage style guides for your projects.


Views

Find more information on the available views in the Multilingual and Bilingual views article.

Multilingual view

This view is useful for team leaders and contributors working on multiple languages simultaneously, as it offers an opportunity to preview and edit translations for all languages at once.

Use the following control to switch to multilingual view:

Here's an example of a multilingual view:

Bilingual view

This view provides maximum space and allows you to focus when working with single language translations.

Use the following control to switch to a bilingual view:

Here's an example of a bilingual view. You can choose the source and the target languages from the dropdowns in the top menu:


Translation keys

Keys in the project editor

Each key is displayed in a separate section: scroll down to see more keys using either regular scrolling or our magic scroll. On the far left, the key name, with all associated attributes, is displayed. These include tags, screenshots and quick actions.

  • Hit the platform icon next to the key name to select the one or multiple platforms this key belongs to.

  • Clicking the tag next to the key name will apply the tag filter.

  • Add more tags by clicking the tag button next to the existing tags.

Key-related actions (grey icons):

  • Open the key comments: a floating bar will appear on the right

  • Copy link: a link to the current key is copied to the clipboard

  • Screenshots: view currently linked screenshots or add new ones to the target key

  • Duplicate key: create a copy of the target key. A floating dialog box will appear, allowing you to enter the key name

  • Google-translate empty values: use machine translation for the non-translated values in all languages

  • Hide from contributors: make the target key invisible to project contributors

  • Delete key: permanently remove the target key (warning: this action cannot be undone)

Translations

Simply click the field next to the desired target language to start entering the translation. Use Ctrl+Up to switch to the next value and Ctrl+Down to return to the previous one. Below the textbox, you will find a number of convenient extras, such as autocomplete and a character counter.

The editor offers free automated translation suggestions from multiple popular machine translation engines. You can use those to help you or order a professional translation from our marketplace.

Key editor

Find more information in the Key editor article.

Lokalise supports translation key modification. To change key names or properties, simply click on the key name in the editor. Please note, this option is only available to project owners and can be globally deactivated in project settings.


Bulk actions

Find more information in the Bulk actions article.

There is a checkbox on the left side of each key. You can select multiple keys and perform a mass action with the selection. The blue floating bar with available mass actions pops up once you select a key.


Magic scroll and remember position

Use magic scroll on the right side to quickly navigate through keys. You can hover the mouse over the scroll bar to see which key it would navigate to.

Use the Remember position in project button to automatically save your position as you leave the editor, so it returns you to the same position following a page reload:


Filtering and sorting

Filter keys

Find more information in the Filter article.

Use filters while editing translations in Lokalise in order to view only the desired strings or keys. For example, you can choose to see only the untranslated strings or only those belonging to iOS. Choose from the predefined filters in the drop-down menu, or create a custom filter by selecting the New filter… option and defining the desired conditions.

Filter keys by screenshots

Find more information in the Filter by screenshots article.

Click on the following icon to filter your keys by their screenshots (please note that this button won't be visible if you don't have any screenshots in the project):

In this mode, you will only see the screenshots that have keys linked to them, and, correspondingly, only keys with attached screenshots. Additionally, you can also filter the screenshots by their tags.

Sort keys

By default, the editor displays the last added keys first. Choose a different criterion from the drop-down list, if required.

How sorting works: Technical details

Sorting options labeled as “A-Z” (ascending) and “Z-A” (descending) use lexicographical order. This means elements are compared character by character using their ASCII values, without special handling for numbers. For example, in this sorting style, “11” appears before “2” because the first character “1” is compared directly to “2”, and “1” comes before “2” in ASCII.

This approach does not apply natural number ordering (where numbers are sorted by their numeric values, like 1, 2, 10). Instead, it treats numbers as plain strings.

Additionally, sorting is applied to the entire key (e.g., “part1::part2::part3”), not to its individual parts (like “part1”, “part2”, and “part3”). This ensures the whole string is evaluated as one unit.


Language settings

Find more information in the Language settings article.

Quickly add a new language to the project by clicking the "plus" button next to the existing language icons.

Click More next to the language name to access its Settings:


Translation files

Find more information in the Filenames article.

Use the Files widget to manage your files:


Translation memory

Find more information in the Translation memory article.

Lokalise has a powerful built-in translation memory, which is shared between all existing team projects and members. Everything that you (or any other team member) type in the editor, upload or set via an API, is automatically saved in the translation memory for later use.

When you start translating texts that are similar to the ones already stored in the memory, you'll be provided with inline suggestions:

Suggestions with match percentages lower than 50% won't be displayed.

Also, for each suggestion you can see:

  • Text in the source language (English in this case). Moreover, you can see the difference between the current source text and the source text fetched from the translation memory. The difference in the translation memory is highlighted with green, whereas the current source text difference is striked out with a red line.

  • Translation in the target language (French in this case).

  • The name of the translation memory storage that the entry was fetched from (Lokalise Translation Memory in this case).

  • When this entry was added to the translation memory and who performed this action.

  • Click on the "trash bin" icon to delete a translation memory entry. Please note that this action can only be performed by project admins and it is available from the Pro plan and above.


Incoming task widget

Find more information in the Incoming task widget article.

Once an admin assigns a task to you, it shows up in the Incoming tasks widget. You will see the task title, description and target languages along with the progress statistics.


Comments

Find more information in the Comments article.

Lokalise offers a key comments widget that you can access by clicking the Comments button in the left menu:

Also you can click on the Comments icon under a translation key or next to a translation to write a key-level or a translation-level comment:

In the comments widget you can mention other people using @ character and view comments for other keys in different projects.

Did this answer your question?