Languages & wording

This is the part that raises the most questions, so let’s take it slowly. No technical knowledge needed.

First: two things people mix up

	What it is	Who sees it
Admin language	The language this app is shown in while you work	Only you and your staff
Form wording	The words that appear in the form on your storefront	Your customers

They are independent. You can run the admin in English and sell in Spanish, or the other way round.

Admin language

Under Settings → Language you choose Automatic, English or Spanish.

It is saved on your store and applied straight away, with no save button. It’s a store preference, not a per-person one: your whole team sees the admin in the language you pick here. On Automatic the app follows your store’s primary language.

Form wording: where it comes from

Here is the important bit. Every text your customer sees can come from three different places, and when two of them disagree, one specific place wins.

Think of it as a ladder. Each rung overrides the one below:

4. Per-language translation (language selector)  ← always wins
3. What you type in the step's boxes             ← only if you change it
2. Your store's language (English, Spanish…)     ← the normal case
1. The factory wording, in English               ← the floor

1. Factory wording

The app ships with all its wording written in English. That is the floor: if nothing overrides it, that is what shows.

2. Your store’s language

The app comes translated. If your store is in Spanish, your customer sees the form in Spanish automatically — you don’t have to do anything.

This already covers most shops: you don’t need to touch anything below.

3. The text boxes inside each step

Each step has boxes where you can rewrite its labels: the titles for each eye, the field names, the error messages…

As long as you leave a box alone, it shows up empty, with the factory wording in grey — the same text your customer sees, in your store’s language. Open a prescription step in a Spanish store and the sphere box shows ESF: in grey; in an English store, SPH:. That grey is not a value: it is what gets shown if you type nothing.

Only when you type something into the box does your wording take over. Type Sphere: and your customers will see Sphere:.

Watch out for one consequence: whatever you type there applies to every language in your store. Type Sphere: and a Spanish customer sees Sphere: too.

4. The language selector

If you sell in several languages and want different wording in each, use the language selector next to the Steps heading in the form editor.

Pick a language, write the wording for it, switch to another and write its own. Each language keeps its own set.

This overrides everything else, always.

5. The interface texts

Some words belong to no step but to the form itself: Next, Add to cart, Summary, Total, Included, “Choose a colour to continue”, the cart error messages… They ship translated with the app and, until now, could not be changed.

From Design › Interface texts they can. The product-page button text (the one that opens the form) lives there too, in the first group. Each box shows in grey what your customers see today in the chosen language, you type over it to say it your way (“Order my glasses” instead of “Add to cart”, “Continue” instead of “Next”) and empty the box to go back. If you sell in several languages, pick the language at the top of the section and write its own: each language keeps its own set.

Two things to respect: the placeholders in braces — {price}, {label} — are where the app puts the amount or the step name and must stay; and some texts are read only by screen readers (Close, Back, the help icon), so change those only if you know what a screen reader does.

How do I…

…rename a field across all languages Type the new wording into the step’s box. Good for single-language shops, or when you want the same term everywhere.

…use different wording per language Use the language selector in the editor. It is the only way to give each language its own.

…go back to the original wording Empty the box: the grey factory wording comes back, and your customer sees the store’s language again.

…keep a field in English inside a Spanish store Type the English term into the box (for instance SPH: instead of the grey ESF:). If only Spanish-speaking customers should see it and not your other languages, use the language selector, pick Spanish, and type it there.

If you bring a form from another store

Every form has a base language: the language of the store where it was created. It’s the one the selector shows marked — Base.

When you import a form into a store whose primary language is different, the app switches the base to your store’s language and keeps the original language as one more translation. No text is lost and there’s nothing for you to do.

If some field had no translation into your language, it stays as it was instead of going blank: seeing the text in another language beats seeing nothing.

More detail in Copying a form to another store.

Colors and help texts translate too

Everything you write inside an option translates like its label, with the same language selector: the name of each color, the title, description and help of each color group, and the help text behind the “?” next to the title. What you don’t write — “Choose a color to continue”, the “From” before a price, “Included” — ships translated; and if you rewrite it under Design, your wording applies in every language.

Wording that isn’t in the steps

The form’s general buttons — Next, Previous, Add to cart, Total, the error messages — ship translated with the app and follow your store’s language. Nothing to configure.