French interface for EndNote

Suggestion to add a French interface to EndNote. Zotero and RefWorks have French interfaces which is great for our bilingual institution, but would love to see EndNote include French as an option.

Even translating help files into French would be a worthwhile start.

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I thought after we, The British Empire, dispatched Napoleon we had banned the use of French (except in Paris but only on Tuesdays) :slight_smile:

Seriously, there should be a French (and Spanish) version. Rather one version where you can select language. It is not that difficult technically. It is just the initial translation that takes the time.

With a multi-language system set up it then becomes easy to add new languages.

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@leanne Is this something Clarivate could look at? It will take some work to set up, but if done properly (i.e. with a look-up file containing the menu words etc) you will probably find that the users will generate and send it the files for other many other languages. More than likely including Latin, Klingon and Romulan :slight_smile:

That is what the suggestions forum is for I guess. I do not have any relationship with Clarivate. I am a scientist who has used EndNote since it was just plain EndNote have grown up with it, so I know it pretty much like the back of my hand.

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Sorry my mistake… I should have pinged @gillianEN for this.

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HI, thanks @leanne ! You are right, the suggestions forum is the right place to put such requests, or contact our support team to have an enhancement request put in.

Localization of desktop software is a tricky one, because while you’re correct that it doesn’t take much to just translate the interface, it greatly increases the costs associated with support, both because you then are supporting additional code bases (which isn’t a thing on a web interface, but is with desktop) and support staff who speak the language sufficiently well to provide assistance and troubleshooting. However, we are constantly discussing it and I hope that some point we may have the ability to offer the interface in more than just English.

Thanks for the tag!

There is only a single code base. As I explained above one desktop app. The menu text etc is loaded from a look up file. You have one per language.

Therefore position 1 in the English file is “save” in the french “sauvegarder” in “german” etc so on installation you pick a language and that file is used. The program picks up record 1 in the language file and it is “save” in which ever language is loaded. Likewise for all other menu entries. (and for that matter any other text) though PDF and URL will be the same in all of them (even Chinese and Russian?)

I know from personal experience that this system works well. A single app with multiple language files. Its how most apps and OS do it.

If you do that system in English I would think, as with the styles, many users will send it versions of the file for many languages.