Catalog languages

Catalog languages determine which languages can be used for translating products and categories, and are included in the denominator when completeness is calculated.

Step by step: enable a language for the company

Do this once for each language, before adding it to a catalog.

1. Go to Settings, choose Catalog in the left column, and open the Languages and translations tab.
2. Click Add language. If none have been enabled yet, the same button appears below No languages have been enabled yet.
3. In the Add language panel, choose an entry in the Language field; the list shows its name and code.
4. Set the Set as default switch. It is locked for the first language and labeled The first language is automatically set as default.
5. Click Add. If no language was selected, you will see Select a language.

Later, use the star and Set as default in the table to change the default, or delete a language with the trash icon (the Confirm deletion window).

Step by step: add a language to a catalog

1. Go to Catalog → Catalogs, select a catalog, and open the Languages tab.
2. In Add language…, choose a language. The list shows only languages enabled for the company and omits languages the catalog already has.
3. Adding a language does not copy names. Empty translations display the default name; you can fill missing translations with AI.
4. To change the default language, click the star and Set as default next to the language.
5. Delete a language using the trash icon in its row. The default language’s trash icon is disabled; set another language as default first.
6. Click Save. Nothing is sent to the server before this.
7. If the language being removed has translations, a red message displays the server response in English: Cannot remove the language. There are translations in this language. Other changes are saved anyway.

Company first, then catalog

The list of languages available in a catalog comes from the languages enabled for the company (Settings → Catalog → Languages and translations). This restriction is intentional: the full ISO list has nearly two hundred entries and is not practical to choose from while editing a catalog.

The order is fixed: enable the language for the company, then add it to the catalog.

Default language

A catalog always has exactly one default language. It is created automatically from the selected language when the catalog is created. Setting a different language as default removes that role from the previous one in the same operation, so the catalog is never left without a default.

You cannot remove the default language from a catalog. To remove it, first set another language as default.

A translation in the default language has one more role: saving it updates the product’s own name.

Delete versus disable

These are different operations with different effects:

Removing a language from a catalog is blocked if any product or category translations exist in it. The system will not orphan the data and tells you what is preventing removal.

Disabling it (clearing its active flag) is not blocked. Translations remain in the database, but the language no longer counts toward completeness, and new translations cannot be added in it. As a side effect, product completeness scores in this catalog jump up because the denominator got smaller; nothing was filled in, it is simply no longer required.

Note: the catalog editor has no language activity switch; any language added there is active. Disable it outside this screen.

If you want to retire a language but keep its translations, disable it. To remove it entirely, delete the translations first.