Multilingual sites in SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint online has feature to enable languages support for users in different regions. To enable users to see sites in their preferred language, we can use these features. There are two type of translation in SharePoint:

a) Multilingual User Interface

b) Variations

Multilingual User Interface:

With Multilingual User Interface (MUI) feature users are enabled to see the SharePoint site in their preferred language instead of default language. MUI will translates the user interface in your preferred language. User interface include menus, navigations, site title and description, web parts, managed metadata, default columns etc.

How to configure MUI:

1) Download and install language packs on all SharePoint front end servers. You can download the language packs from the same location where you downloaded the SharePoint 2013.

2) Run the SharePoint product configuration wizard.

3)In SharePoint site setting, go to Alternate Language and check the languages you want your users to be enable to use to display the user interfaces.

Now there are two ways to configure MUI.

a) Change the language preference settings in User Profile settings to your preferred language.

·        Open MySites and go to About me

·        Click Edit your profile and Language and Regions

·        Select the language of your choice

b)  Change the language setting in your browser

i)  Select menu Tools

ii)  Select menu item Internet Options.

iii) Select tab General.

iv)Click button Languages.
v) Click button Add...

vi) Mark a language e.g. English (United Kingdom) and click OK.

vii) Reload webpage

Next time when you will visit the SharePoint site, it will be display in your preferred language instead of site collection default language.

Variations

Variation feature is used to translate the content if SharePoint site in other languages other than default language. Variation can only be used with publishing sites or the SharePoint with Publishing Infrastructure feature activated. Variations are designed to use when your content has to use for different regions, different markets and different cultures.

You can use variations to create sites, lists, and page content for specific languages. In this scenario, most of the content is authored in the language of the source variation site and synced to some or all of the target variation sites for translation into different languages. For example, the content might be authored in English and be synced to target variation sites for translation into German, French, and Spanish.

Source variation and target variation

The source variation site and the target variation sites are always created as subsites of the variation root site. Source variation and target variation sites are always created below the root site level. Each variation site will use the same master page as root site by default.  But each variation site can also use separate master page. Page layout and CSS files.

How to configure variations:

Below are the steps to configure variation source site.

1)      Create the site with publishing template and go to site settings--> variation settings

2)      On variation page Create Every Where will be selected. This means any content created in the source label is will be copied to all target sites. You can leave the other settings on page as default and proceed to next step.

3)      Select the language form drop down

4)      Select the locale for your site

Note: Locale is a regional setting that specifies the way numbers, dates and times are displayed on a site. The locale setting does not change the language in which the site is displayed. For example, selecting the Thai locale changes the default sort order of list items and uses the Buddhist calendar instead of the default calendar. Not to be confused between Language and Locale settings, even if language packs are not installed, Variation Labels for different locale can still be created and content can be translated into different languages. Language packs will only affect SharePoint user interface for content authors and admins

5)      Variations Home  is the location site where sub sites for all labels will be created

6)      Select label name, display name and template for your publishing site.

Now source label is created, a wizard will be shown in SharePoint 2013 to create the target label by following below steps:

1)      Select language of the site from drop down and select locales for the target variation

2)      On next page select the target label display name and site templates

1)      On next page there are two options for translation i.e. Human translation or Machine translation

2)      Next option is whether you wanted to automatically sync variations from source site or manually.

3)      Last step is to review all your settings. If everything is OK press Finish.

Configure Office Web apps server with SharePoint 2013

This article describes the procedure to connect the Office web app server with production environment. Unlike Office web app server 2010, the new Office web apps farm can serve multiple SharePoint 2013 farms plus Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013.This document will guide you in both cases whether you wanted to use Office Web Apps server with single SharePoint 2013 farm or Multiple Farms.

If you wanted to connect the Office Web Apps server with new SharePoint 2013 farm without disconnecting from previous SharePoint 2013 farm then follow the steps mentioned in “Procedure 1” or “Procedure 2” according to your requirements.

If you wanted to connect the Office Web App farm with only one SharePoint 2013 farm then first discounted the previous SharePoint 2013 farm by following the steps mentioned in “Procedure 3”. After disconnecting the Office Web Apps from previously connected farm, follow the steps mentioned in “Procedure 1” or “Procedure 2” according to your requirements.

Configure SharePoint to use Office Web Apps server

Choose one of the following sections depending on whether you want to use HTTP or HTTPS.

Procedure 1: Configuration using HTTP

Our Office Web Apps server is configured to allow HTTP. So, there is no need for any configuration on Office Web Apps server. There will be following steps to be perform on SharePoint 2013 server.

1.       Run SharePoint 2013 Management Shell with Administrator privileges.

2.       Create the binding between Office Web Apps server and SharePoint 2013 sever by running following PowerShell command.

New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName <WacServerName> -AllowHTTP

<WacServerName> is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the URL that you set for the internal URL

3.       View the WOPI zone for the SharePoint binding by the following PowerShell command.

Get-SPWOPIZone

The WOPI zone displayed by this command should be internal-http. If it’s displayed correctly, skip the next step. If it isn’t, see the next step.

4.       Change the WOPI zone to internal-http by following PowerShell command.

Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “internal-http”

5.       You can verify that the new zone is now internal-http by running Get-SPWOPIZone again.

6.       You need to set AllowOAuthOverHttp to True. Otherwise Office Web Apps won’t work. You can check the current status by running the following command.

              (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp 

      If this command returns FALSE run the following commands.

               $config = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig)

      $config.AllowOAuthOverHttp = $true

$config.Update()

7.       Run the following command again to verify that the AllowOAuthOverHttp setting is now set to True.

(Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp

8.       Verify that Office Web App is working. In SharePoint 2013, make sure you’re not logged on as System Account because you won’t be able to edit or view the documents with Office Web Apps. Go to a SharePoint 2013 document library that contains Office documents and view a Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or OneNote file. The document should open in a browser that displays the file by using Office Web Apps.

Procedure 2: Configuration using HTTPS

As our Office Web Apps server is configured with HTTP, we have to reinstall the Office Web Apps. After installation open windows PowerShell and run the following command.

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl "https://server.contoso.com" -ExternalUrl "https://wacweb01.contoso.com" -CertificateName "OfficeWebApps Certificate" –EditingEnabled

·         InternalURL is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the server that runs Office Web Apps Server, such as http://servername.contoso.com.

·         ExternalURL is the FQDN that can be accessed on the Internet. This parameter is required if you wanted to allow external users to access Office Web Apps Server.

·         CertificateName is the friendly name of the certificate.

·         EditingEnabled is optional and enables editing in Office Web Apps when used with SharePoint 2013. This parameter isn't used by Lync Server 2013 or Exchange Server 2013 because those hosts don't support editing.

On SharePoint 2013 server side perform the following steps:

1.       Run SharePoint 2013 Management Shell with Administrator privileges.

2.       Create the binding between Office Web Apps server and SharePoint 2013 sever by running following PowerShell command.

New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName <WacServerName>

<WacServerName> is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the URL that you set for the internal URL

3.       View the WOPI zone for the SharePoint binding by the following PowerShell command.

Get-SPWOPIZone

4.       If the results from Step 3 show that internal-https and the SharePoint farm is internal only, you can skip this step. If you have a SharePoint farm that is accessed both internally and externally, you need to run the following command to change the zone to external-https

Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “external-https”

5.       Verify that Office Web App is working. In SharePoint 2013, make sure you’re not logged on as System Account because you won’t be able to edit or view the documents with Office Web Apps. Go to a SharePoint 2013 document library that contains Office documents and view a Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or OneNote file. The document should open in a browser that displays the file by using Office Web Apps.

Procedure 3: Discounting the SharePoint 2013 from Office Web Apps Farm

To disconnect the SharePoint 2013 from Office Web Apps server perform the following steps:

1.       Get the list of host machine which are allowed to connect with Office web apps server.

Get-OfficeWebAppsHost

2.       Removes a host domain from the Allow List for an Office Web Apps Server farm.

Remove-OfficeWebAppsHost -domain “contoso.com”