Knowledge Base articles can use AI Translations or separately maintained language versions. If you want the same content available across languages with less ongoing upkeep, AI Translations is usually the best place to start.
Use separately maintained versions when your team needs closer editorial control, lasting language-specific wording or instructions, or control over when legacy Google Translate or DeepL translations run. You can write translations yourself or trigger a legacy provider manually.
In Site Structure, Manually Translated includes both hand-written translations and translations created with those legacy providers. Both use subcommunities under Static Language. Product Integration is no longer required.
Understand the language model
The language option a subcommunity belongs to determines its language model, and the subcommunity determines the model for its Knowledge Bases. You cannot mix AI-translated and manually translated Knowledge Bases within the same subcommunity.
AI-translated Knowledge Bases use the AI translation flow. See AI Translations for availability and enablement, and Site Structure for language structure and migration guidance.
Prepare the static-language subcommunities
For each language version you want to add, make sure a subcommunity exists under that Static Language in Site Structure. A Knowledge Base belongs inside a subcommunity; it cannot be placed directly under a language branch.
For example, if the source KB is in an English subcommunity and you want a Spanish version, create or use a subcommunity under Spanish. Select Add Subcommunity on that static-language branch if needed.
Add a Knowledge Base translation
Once a subcommunity exists under another static language, Add Translation appears on the source KB.
Select Add Translation on the source KB in Site Structure.
Alternatively, edit the source KB and select Add Language in its Languages section. Both entry points open Add Knowledge Base Translation.
Enter the translated Title and, optionally, a translated Description. Select the Language and a Subcommunity that uses that language, then select Save.
A language already used by the KB is unavailable for another version. The selected language cannot be changed after the translation is added.
The new version appears inside the selected subcommunity as Knowledge Base Translation, linked to the source KB. Review the changes under Pending Operations, then Apply the plan when the resulting structure is correct.
Adding a language version does not automatically translate its article text in the manual or legacy machine translation workflow.
Translate an article manually
Open the article and use Other languages to select the language version you want to maintain.
Open the article’s actions menu and select Edit. Write or paste the translated content, then publish the updated language version. The example below uses the Spanish interface, where Publicar means Publish.
Translate an article with Google Translate or DeepL
Configure your provider globally through Settings → Translation Settings → Machine Translation Providers. These legacy providers are separate from AI Translations.
Google Translate requires a Google Translate API key. DeepL requires a DeepL API Pro account and an API key.
Open an article, open its actions menu, and select Machine Translation. The dialog shows the language versions and their translation status. Select Translate for the language you want to translate or update.
You must trigger legacy machine translation manually. When translation completes, the translated article is automatically published.
Keep translations current
When the source article changes, its manual and legacy machine translations are marked out of date. Update the translated content manually or trigger machine translation again for the affected language versions.
For more about language inheritance, see Knowledge Base Language and Source Locale.