For Translators – How to Translate With WPML

The Translator’s Sidebar in WordPress Admin

If you only have the Translator role, the WPML sidebar in your WordPress admin collapses to a single item: Translations. Settings, AI Translation Billing, Support, and Activate & Update are hidden. The only tab inside Translations that you can use is Translation Tasks, your working queue.

If you also have the Translation Manager role (or you’re an administrator), you see the full Translations tab strip alongside Translation Tasks. Either way, the work happens on the same Tasks tab.

Your Working Queue – Translation Tasks

Open WPML > Translations > Translation Tasks. Every item assigned to you for translation or review shows up here, with three per-row actions:

• Translate. Opens the item in the Advanced Translation Editor (ATE), where you translate side-by-side with the source. You translate one segment at a time and the result auto-saves. When every segment is translated, the task moves to Completed.
• Resign. Gives the task back to the queue. Use it when you’ve looked at the content and decided it’s not the right fit for you (too technical, outside your subject area, anything you’d rather pass on). After you resign, the task is unassigned and the Translation Manager can route it to someone else.
• View. Opens the source content as it’s published on the site, in a new tab. Useful for seeing how the content sits in context before you start.

Filters at the top of the tab narrow your queue by title, content type, language pair, or status.

Some tasks arrive with an AI translation already in place. The job is to review and edit, not translate from scratch. See How to edit a WPML automatic translation for that procedure.

Translating in a CAT Tool – The XLIFF Path

If you prefer to translate in memoQ, Trados, OmegaT, or another CAT tool, WPML can send you the work as XLIFF files instead of asking you to translate inside the browser.

Setup happens once, by an admin or Translation Manager. They enable Include XLIFF files in the notification emails at WPML > Settings > Translators > Notifications. From that point on, when a job is assigned to you, you receive an email with the source content packaged as XLIFF (a single file or a ZIP, depending on the job).

The flow on your end:

1. Receive the email and save the XLIFF file (or ZIP) locally.
2. Open it in your CAT tool. WPML’s XLIFF follows the XLIFF standard, which most CAT tools can handle: Trados Tag Editor, memoQ, OmegaT, MetaTexis are commonly used.
3. Translate.
4. Click the return URL in the notification email to upload the translated file back. You can upload single files or zip everything and upload at once.

WPML imports the translation, applies it to the site, and emails you when it’s done. If you need to redo a job, upload the corrected XLIFF and WPML replaces the previous translation.

If you don’t see XLIFF attachments in your notification emails, ask your Translation Manager to enable the setting. Translators can’t enable it themselves.

You can also export XLIFF directly from the Translation Tasks tab any time, without waiting for an email. The Import / Export XLIFF card at the bottom of the tab exports selected tasks in XLIFF 1.2 and lets you import the translated file back.

How You Get Added as a Translator

Translators are added by an administrator or Translation Manager from WPML > Settings > Translators. The same screen sets up Translation Managers, the role that oversees translators and assigns jobs. All administrators are automatically Translation Managers; in larger teams, an admin can add dedicated Translation Managers to delegate the workflow without granting full admin privileges.

If you’re a translator and you can’t see your queue, ask your admin or Translation Manager to confirm that you’ve been added at Settings > Translators with the right language pairs.