Translations

Need your survey in multiple languages? Survey Shaper’s got you covered. You can present a single survey in one or more languages, letting respondents choose their preferred language. All translations live in one survey, which means all your data lands in a single data store—no merging required.

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Single language survey

Survey Shaper defaults to English. Building a survey in a different language? Just override the Default Language property, and your buttons and validation text will automatically display in your chosen language.

Here’s how:

Survey Editor (Legacy)

1. Build your survey using translated text in all Question Text, Answer Text, and Helper Text
2. Click Properties in the header bar
3. Expand the Advanced section and enter your desired language code in the Default Language property
4. Click OK
5. Save and Preview the survey

Survey Editor (Beta)

In Survey Editor (Beta), Default Language is shown in More editor actions (⋮) > Properties, but it can’t be changed there. To set it, either:

• Open the survey in Survey Editor (Legacy) and follow the steps on the other tab; or
• Click Edit as JSON and set defaultLanguage to the language code, for example "defaultLanguage": "fr", then click Apply and save the survey

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Available languages

Find your language in the list below and use its code in the Default Language project property.

Language	Code
Arabic	ar
Bengali	bn
Bulgarian	bg
Chinese (Malaysia)	zh-my
Chinese (Simplified)	zh-Hans
Chinese (Traditional)	zh-Hant
Dari	prs
Dutch/Nederlands	nl
English	en
French	fr
French (Canada)	fr-CA
German	de
Greek	el
Hindi	hi
Indonesian	id
Italian	it
Japanese	ja
Korean	ko
Malay	ms
Norwegian	no
Polish	pl
Portuguese	pt
Portuguese (Brazil)	pt-Br
Portuguese (Portugal)	pt-PT
Romanian	ro
Russian	ru
Spanish	es
Spanish (Chile)	es-CL
Spanish (EU)	es-ES
Spanish (Mexico)	es-MX
Tagalog	tl
Tamil	ta
Thai	th
Turkish	tr
Vietnamese	vi

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Multilingual survey

Adding languages to your survey involves downloading a template with all your survey text, translating it, then importing it back. Here’s the full walkthrough:

1. Open the Survey Shaper application

2. If the survey is currently published, save a new version

3. Click the more icon (⋮) on the unpublished survey (you may need to hit refresh to see the updated status)

4. Select Scripting > Import Translations

5. Select the most recent (unpublished) survey version and your required language

   Unpublished versions only

   To protect live surveys from accidental changes, only unpublished versions are available for selection.

6. Click the Export Translation Template button—this downloads an Excel file

7. Open the downloaded SurveyTranslationImportTemplate in Excel (enable editing if prompted)

8. Enter your translations into the spreadsheet (see the Survey translation import template section below for details)

9. Save the updated template

10. Return to the Import Translations dialog box (via Scripting > Import Translations on the survey’s more menu) and ensure the correct version and language are selected

11. Click Select File

12. Select your updated template and click Open—you’ll see the file name displayed

13. Click Upload

14. Once uploaded, processing notes appear. Scroll through and check for Errors—these need fixing. If you find any, clear the file, edit the template to fix the errors, and try uploading again.

    Warnings vs errors

    You’ll probably see a bunch of Warnings—don’t worry about those. Errors, however, must be fixed before you can proceed.

15. Click Apply Translation

16. Save and Publish the survey

Repeat the above process for each language required for the survey.

Translations are imported from the Survey Shaper page, so it’s the same whichever editor you use. In Survey Editor (Beta), you can’t import or export translations inside the editor, and questions you import from another survey don’t bring their translations with them.

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Survey translation import template

The Survey Translation Import Template is an Excel spreadsheet where you enter your translated text. When you open it for the first time, you’ll see three sections divided by thick black lines.

First section (columns A–C)

This identifies what you’re translating:

Column	Description
Type	Whether text relates to a Question or Answer
Code	The Variable Name
SubCode	The Answer Code

Second section (columns D–L) — English text

This contains the English (default language) text entered into the survey script:

Column	Description
Label	Question Variable Label
Text	Question Text or Answer Text
HelperText	Question Helper Text
Footer	Question Footer
VerbatimText	Answer Verbatim Text
VerbatimPrefix	Answer Verbatim Prefix
VerbatimSuffix	Answer Verbatim Suffix
NoVerbatim	Question No Verbatim text
ModuleRules	Question Controls properties

Third section (columns M–U) — Translation

This contains blank cells into which you will enter the translated text. Each column corresponds to those containing the English text:

English Text	Translated Text
Label	TranslatedLabel
Text	TranslatedText
HelperText	TranslatedHelperText
Footer	TranslatedFooter
VerbatimText	TranslatedVerbatimText
VerbatimPrefix	TranslatedVerbatimPrefix
VerbatimSuffix	TranslatedVerbatimSuffix
NoVerbatim	TranslatedNoVerbatim
ModuleRules	TranslatedModuleRules

Entering translated text

• Copy all cells from D3–L3, copying down to the last row with text
• Select cell M3 and paste—all English text is now duplicated
• Replace the English text in columns M–U with your translations. Keep existing formatting (like <br>, <b>, <em>) intact so your translated survey looks consistent
• Save changes (stick with .xls format—.xlsx will cause an error)

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Edit translated survey

Made changes to your survey after importing translations? You’ll need to repeat the download-translate-import process for any new or modified content. Anything left untranslated will display in English, regardless of which language the respondent selects.

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Change next button language

For single language surveys, change button language via the Default Language project property.

Still seeing ‘Next’?

If you’ve set a default language but still see “Next” on a button, check if the Override Button Text control is enabled on that question. Delete the control if needed.

For multi-language surveys, specify button text using the Override Button Text control. Enter translated button text in the TranslatedModuleRules column of the Survey Translation Import Template (copy the format from the ModuleRules column) before uploading.

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Hide language select buttons

For multi-language surveys, respondents normally see language selection buttons at the start. Sometimes you might want to test in the default language but only show translated versions to respondents.

To hide the language buttons:

1. Open the survey in Survey Shaper (if it’s published, you’ll need to create a new version)

2. Click Resources in the header (the Resources icon in Survey Editor (Beta))

3. Click the \skin\skin.surveyspa.css file—the contents display on the right

4. At the top of the Contents box, paste this code:

   .se-survey-translations {
       display: none !important;
   }
   
   .se-survey-translations-mobile {
       display: inline-block;
       display: none !important;
   }

5. Click Save

6. Click Close

7. Save and Publish the survey

With language buttons hidden, only the default language shows when respondents click the survey link. Want to display a translated language instead? Just append the language code to the survey link.

Edit the survey link

1. Open Survey Shaper

2. In the Survey Shaper section in the content table, click the more icon (⋮) on the survey

3. Select Versions & Links > Survey Links

4. Click the Copy icon next to the published live link to copy it to your clipboard

5. Paste the link into a text file

6. At the end of the URL, add:

   &languagecode=

7. Enter the language code at the end of the URL (the language code must match the code selected during the translation import step)

8. Distribute the appended survey link to survey respondents

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Translate default Eve conversation text

Eve Conversations work in a single language. By default, “Eve is typing”, placeholder, and “Low/High Detail” text appear in English.

Translate “Eve is typing” and placeholder text

1. Open the survey in Survey Shaper (if it’s published, you’ll need to create a new version)
2. Click the Eve question in the survey flowchart
3. In the Properties Pane, open the controls: in Survey Editor (Legacy), click the ellipsis next to the Controls property; in Survey Editor (Beta), expand the Controls section
4. Replace the English text with translated text in the Placeholder and Eve is typing fields
5. Save the survey

Translate the “Low Detail/High Detail” labels on the Detail Bar

1. Click Resources in the header (the Resources icon in Survey Editor (Beta))

2. Click the \skin\skin.surveyspa.css file—the contents display on the right

3. At the top of the Contents box, paste this code (replace “High Detail” and “Low Detail” with your translations):

   /*EVE detail bar translating high low detail */
   div.eveLegend div { display:none; }
   
   div.eveLegend:after { content:"High Detail"; display:block; font-size: 10px; font-family: Arial; }
   div.eveLegend:before { content:"Low Detail"; display:block; font-size: 10px; font-family: Arial; }

4. Click Save

5. Click Close

6. Save and Publish the survey