WPML

How to Translate Media in WordPress – Images, PDFs, Alt Text, and Captions

WPML translates media in two ways: every image, video, and PDF can carry translated alt text, captions, descriptions, and titles alongside your post content, and you can upload a different file per language when the asset itself needs to be localized. This page walks through both.

Translate Alt Text, Captions, Descriptions, and Titles Together With Your Posts

When you send a post for translation, the alt text, captions, descriptions, and titles of every media item embedded in that post travel with it. They’re translated by the Translation Editor as part of the post, with no separate step.

This is the default behavior and what most sites need. A blog post with five embedded images is translated as one unit: content plus media texts, in one pass.

Two settings shape this behavior, both at WPML > Settings > Media Translation:

  • Automatically detect best options for translating image texts (alt, caption, title). Recommended. WPML decides per image whether to duplicate the source-language text or translate it, avoiding both duplicate fields and missed translations.
  • Translate Media Library texts (alt, caption, title) when translating content. Controls whether media texts are bundled into the post’s translation job in the first place.

Show a Different Image, Video, or PDF per Language

Some assets need more than translated texts. A regional campaign image with English text baked in needs a French version with French text in the image itself. A product photo with a sale tag visible in the corner needs the localized tag for each market. A downloadable PDF (a menu, a spec sheet, a white paper) needs its own per-language version. For those cases, you upload an alternative file per language.

The Media tab inside WPML > Translations is where that happens. The page lists every item in your Media Library with one column per language and three states per cell:

  • The globe icon marks the source language. That’s where the file lives in its original form.
  • The + icon means there’s no translation for that language yet; click to add one. Adding a translation lets you upload a different file and edit the alt text, caption, description, and title for that language specifically.
  • The pencil icon means a translation exists; click to edit either the file or the texts.

The Media tab is also where you go to manually translate an item’s texts independently of any post – useful for media that hasn’t been embedded yet but you want pre-translated.

Make Sure WPML Is Set to Translate Your Media

The default media-text translation behavior (texts travelling with posts) is core WPML. It works as long as the Media post type is set translatable at WPML > Settings > Post Types Translation, which is the default. If you’ve set Media to Not translatable there, no media texts get translated anywhere.

Per-language media files are a separate feature, provided by the WPML Media Translation add-on (included with Multilingual CMS and Agency). The Media tab inside WPML > Translations is visible only when this add-on is active. Without it, you can still translate the texts (as part of posts), but you can’t upload a different file per language.

Install Media Translation from WPML > Activate & Update if you need per-language files.

Written by Amir · Last updated July 1, 2026