Let’s learn how to bulk translate WooCommerce taxonomies in Google Sheets. We’re using the Polylang plugin to manage our multilingual WooCommerce store, and we have hundreds of product categories, tags and attributes we would love to translate quickly, without spending a lot of hours doing it.
The normal way of translating product taxonomy terms would be granting a translator access to the website and allowing them to translate the taxonomy terms one by one. But that’s the old way. 🙂
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to export WooCommerce taxonomies to Google Sheets, translate them quickly using the GOOGLE TRANSLATE function, and import the translations back to your WordPress site. What could take you hours can now take just some minutes.
Related tutorial: How to Bulk Translate WooCommerce Products in Google Sheets
Table of Contents
Here’s what you need
To create a multilingual WooCommerce store, you need these plugins:
We assume you’re already using these plugins.
Besides these plugins, you need these other plugins / extensions / services:
1- WP Sheet Editor – WooCommerce Products
This plugin allows you to edit taxonomy terms using spreadsheets within WordPress.
You can bulk manage WooCommerce categories, tags, and attributes.
You can download the plugin here: Download Categories, Tags, Product Attributes, Taxonomies Spreadsheet Plugin - or - Check the features
2- WP Sheet Editor – Polylang extension
This extension adds full compatibility between WP Sheet Editor and Polylang, allowing you to edit Polylang fields as columns in the spreadsheet.
3- Google Sheets Sync service
This service allows you to export and import WordPress content using Google Sheets.
You can export and import immediately, as well as create scheduled exports and imports (one-time, in real time, recurring).
You can sign up to the service here:
Sign up to the Google Sheets Sync Service - or - Check the features
Once you install everything you need, you can start bulk translating WooCommerce categories, tags and/or attribute terms.
Connect WordPress and Google Sheets
When you sign up to the Google Sheets Sync service, you’ll get a helper plugin that will allow you to connect your WordPress site to your Google Sheets account, to the Google API, and to the WP Sheet Editor API.
Follow this guide to do it.
Bulk translate WooCommerce categories
If you have thousands of WooCommerce product categories that you want to translate using Polylang and Google Sheets, you need to follow these steps:
a) Export product categories to Google Sheets
Go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit product categories in wp-admin.
Important – The spreadsheet will display the categories according to the Polylang language you have selected in the WordPress administration bar.
Open the Export tool.
Select these values to export your WooCommerce categories to Google Sheets:
- What columns do you want to export: We’ll export these four columns:
- Name
- Description
- Polylang: Language
- Polylang: Translation of
- Which rows do you want to export: We’ll export all our rows.
- What app will you use to edit this file: Google Sheets
- Name of this export: Add a name here and this will be the name assigned to your Google Sheet.
- Click on Start new export.
Once the process is completed, you need to click on the View Google Sheet link.
As you can see, we have exported our WooCommerce product categories to Google Sheets:
b) Translate category names and descriptions in Google Sheets
To translate the names and descriptions of your categories, you need to start by adding additional columns for the fields to be translated.
In this case, we need to add a column for category name and a column for category description.
We will call them “Name ES” and “Description ES”.
Second, you need to copy the values from the Name column to the Polylang: Translation of column.
Third, you need to change the values in the Polylang: Language column.
We’ll replace the source language with the translation or target language. In this case, we’ll replace English with Spanish.
Fourth, translate the category names.
To translate the category names, we will add the following Google function to the cells where we want to create the translations:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(cell,"source language code","target language code")
For example, let’s say the name column is the C column in the Google spreadsheet, and we want to translate the second row from English (source language) to Spanish (target language).
If this is the case, we should enter this in the second row of the “Name ES” column:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(C2,"en","es")
It should look like this:
Now you just need to autofill the content in the cells below to automatically translate all the category names.
Fifth, translate the category descriptions.
To translate the category descriptions, add this Google Sheets function where you want the translated description:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(cell,"source language code","target language code")
For example, let’s say the description column is D in the Google spreadsheet, and we want to translate the second row from English (source language) to Spanish (target language).
If this is the case, we should enter this in the second row of the “Description ES” column:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(D2,"en","es")
It should look like this:
Now you just need to autofill the content in the cells below to automatically translate all the category descriptions.
c) Import your translated categories from Google Sheets
You need to select the translation language in the admin bar. For example, we will select Spanish.
Now you need to open the Import tool.
Select these values in the Import tool:
- Source: Google Sheets
- Google Sheet file: Select the Google spreadsheet where you translated the categories. You can refresh the list if you don’t find it.
- Click on Next.
Now we need to manually map the columns to import:
In this case, we need to ignore these columns:
- Name (source language) = Ignore this column
- Description (source language) = Ignore this column
And we will instead map these columns as follows:
- Name ES (target language) = Name
- Description ES (target language) = Description
Once you’re done mapping the columns, click on Next.
In the Do you want to update or create items step, we will select Import all rows as new and click on Next.
Finally, you’ll see a preview. If everything is OK, click on The preview is fine, start import.
With these steps, you’ll have translated and imported your WooCommerce categories using Polylang and Google Sheets
Bulk translate WooCommerce tags
Let’s see how to translate WooCommerce product tags using Google Sheets. For this, we need to follow these steps:
a) Export product tags to Google Sheets
Go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit product tags.
Important – The tags displayed in the spreadsheet will depend on the Polylang language you have selected in the WordPress admin bar.
Open the Export tool.
Select these values to export your WooCommerce tags to Google Sheets:
- What columns do you want to export: We’ll export these four columns:
- Name
- Description
- Polylang: Language
- Polylang: Translation of
- Which rows do you want to export: We’ll export all our rows.
- What app will you use to edit this file: Google Sheets
- Name of this export: Add a name here and this will be the name assigned to your Google Sheet.
- Click on Start new export.
Once the process is completed, you need to click on the View Google Sheet link.
As you can see, we have exported our WooCommerce product tags to Google Sheets:
b) Translate tag names and descriptions in Google Sheets
To translate the names and descriptions of your tags, you need to start by adding additional columns for the fields to be translated.
In this case, we need to add a column for the tag name and a column for the tag description.
We will call them “Name ES” and “Description ES”.
Second, you need to copy the values from the Name column to the Polylang: Translation of column.
Third, you need to change the values in the Polylang: Language column.
We’ll replace the source language with the translation or target language. In this case, we’ll replace English with Spanish.
Fourth, translate the tag names.
To translate the tag names, we will add the following Google function to the cells where we want to create the translations:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(cell,"source language code","target language code")
For example, let’s say the name column is B in the Google spreadsheet, and we want to translate the second row from English (source language) to Spanish (target language).
If this is the case, we should enter this in the second row of the “Name ES” column:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(B2,"en","es")
It should look like this:
Now you just need to autofill the content in the cells below to automatically translate all the tag names.
Fifth, translate the tag descriptions.
To translate the tag descriptions, add this Google Sheets function where you want the translated description:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(cell,"source language code","target language code")
For example, let’s say the description column is D in the Google spreadsheet, and we want to translate the second row from English (source language) to Spanish (target language).
If this is the case, we should enter this in the second row of the “Description ES” column:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(D2,"en","es")
Now you just need to autofill the content in the cells below to automatically translate all the tag descriptions.
c) Import your translated tags from Google Sheets
You need to select the translation language in the admin bar. For example, we will select Spanish.
Now you need to open the Import tool.
Select these values in the Import tool:
- Source: Google Sheets
- Google Sheet file: Select the Google spreadsheet where you translated the tags. You can refresh the list if you don’t find it.
- Click on Next.
Now we need to manually map the columns to import:
In this case, we need to ignore these columns:
- Name (source language) = Ignore this column
- Description (source language) = Ignore this column
And we will instead map these columns as follows:
- Name ES (target language) = Name
- Description ES (target language) = Description
Once you’re done mapping the columns, click on Next.
In the Do you want to update or create items step, we will select Import all rows as new and click on Next.
Finally, you’ll see a preview. If everything is OK, click on The preview is fine, start import.
With these steps, you’ll have translated and imported your WooCommerce tags using Google Sheets and Polylang.
Bulk translate WooCommerce attributes
Let’s see how to translate WooCommerce product attributes using Google Sheets. For this, we need to follow these steps:
a) Export product attribute terms to Google Sheets
Open the spreadsheet of the WooCommerce attribute term you want to translate.
In this example, we will translate product colors, so we need to go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit product color.
Important – The terms displayed in the spreadsheet will depend on the Polylang language you have selected in the WordPress admin bar.
Open the Export tool.
Select these values to export your WooCommerce colors to Google Sheets:
- What columns do you want to export: We’ll export these four columns:
- Name
- Description
- Polylang: Language
- Polylang: Translation of.
- Which rows do you want to export: We’ll export all our rows.
- What app will you use to edit this file: Google Sheets
- Name of this export: Add a name here and this will be the name assigned to your Google Sheet.
- Click on Start new export.
Once the process is completed, you need to click on the View Google Sheet link.
As you can see, we have exported our WooCommerce product colors to Google Sheets:
b) Translate attribute term names and descriptions in Google Sheets
To translate the names and descriptions of your WooCommerce colors/sizes or any other attribute term, you need to start by adding additional columns for the fields to be translated.
In this case, we need to add a column for color name and a column for color description.
We will call them “Name ES” and “Description ES”.
Second, you need to copy the values from the Name column to the Polylang: Translation of column.
Third, you need to change the values in the Polylang: Language column.
We’ll replace the source language with the translation or target language. In this case, we’ll replace English with Spanish.
Fourth, translate the attribute term names.
To translate the color names, we will add the following Google function to the cells where we want to create the translations:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(cell,"source language code","target language code")
For example, let’s say the name column is B in the Google spreadsheet, and we want to translate the second row from English (source language) to Spanish (target language).
If this is the case, we should enter this in the second row of the “Name ES” column:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(B2,"en","es")
It should look like this:
Now you just need to autofill the content in the cells below to automatically translate all the attribute term names.
Fifth, translate the attribute term descriptions.
To translate the color descriptions, add this Google Sheets function where you want the translated description:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(cell,"source language code","target language code")
For example, let’s say the description column is D in the Google spreadsheet, and we want to translate the second row from English (source language) to Spanish (target language).
If this is the case, we should enter this in the second row of the “Description ES” column:
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(D2,"en","es")
Now you just need to autofill the content in the cells below to automatically translate all the color descriptions.
c) Import your translated attribute terms from Google Sheets
You need to select the translation language in the admin bar. For example, we will select Spanish.
Now you need to open the Import tool.
Select these values in the Import tool:
- Source: Google Sheets
- Google Sheet file: Select the Google spreadsheet where you translated the attribute terms. You can refresh the list if you don’t find it.
- Click on Next.
Now we need to manually map the columns to import:
In this case, we need to ignore these columns:
- Name (source language) = Ignore this column
- Description (source language) = Ignore this column
And we will instead map these columns as follows:
- Name ES (target language) = Name
- Description ES (target language) = Description
Once you’re done mapping the columns, click on Next.
In the Do you want to update or create items step, we will select Import all rows as new and click on Next.
Finally, you’ll see a preview. If everything is OK, click on The preview is fine, start import.
With these steps, you’ll have translated and imported your WooCommerce attribute terms using Google Sheets and Polylang
WP Sheet Editor and Google Sheets Sync allow you to streamline the process of translating WooCommerce taxonomies (categories, tags, attribute terms) and create multilingual WooCommerce stores with Polylang.