Contents

Editing XLIFF and string catalog files

Translate or adapt the localizable files for a language and region that you export from your project.

Overview

After you export localizations, you can give the Xcode Localization Catalog to localizers for translation, or edit the XLIFF files located in the Localized Contents folder yourself.

Add translations to XLIFF files

To find the user-facing strings that need translation, including the app name, search for the <trans-unit> element in the XLIFF file. To insert a translation of a string, add a <target> element to the <trans-unit> element containing the localized text as in:

<trans-unit id="Hello, world!" xml:space="preserve">
        <source>Hello, world!</source>
        <target>Hallo, Welt!</target>
        <note>A friendly greeting.</note>
</trans-unit>

If you specify a table name when you internationalize your code — in other words, if you use the Text init(_:tableName:bundle:comment:) method or the NSLocalizedString(_:tableName:bundle:value:comment:) function with the tableName parameter — Xcode groups the strings into separate <file> elements with [table name].strings as the filename. If you don’t specify a table name, Xcode uses the default Localizable.strings as the filename.

When you import the localizations, Xcode adds a version of the strings file for each localization to your project. In the following SwiftUI code listing, the first Text string appears in the default Localized.strings file while the Button label that specifies a table name appears in the Buttons.strings file:

VStack {
    Text("Hello, world!", comment:"A friendly greeting.")
        .font(.largeTitle)
        .padding()
    Button(action: pushMe){
        Text("Push Me", tableName:"Buttons", comment:"Push Me button label.")
    }
    .font(.title)
}

Edit string catalogs in Xcode

After you import localizations, you can edit the string catalog file in your project and the next time you export localizations, Xcode includes your changes in the XLIFF files.

For more information about editing string catalogs in Xcode, see Localizing and varying text with a string catalog.

See Also

Translation and adaptation