There is commercial software, especially INTL by Stephen Black.

If you want to make your own, an alternative to tables is a text-file - which may be similar in structure to an INI file. This allows the end-user to make his own translations into arbitrary (Roman alphabet) languages. The Opera browser uses this principle, for example.

You can see an example of obtaining data from a text file in Download #10009 (Automated backup).

A table-approach, OTOH, will make it easier to upgrade to new versions, since you can then easily spot texts that have been added, and edit the columns for the other languages.

For a table-based approach, I would use a column for a key value that is to be searched (which might be identical, or similar, to the English text), and then translations in different languages, in additional columns.

You should then have a function that looks up a translated value, to use it in your form.

You could also combine text and table approach; for instance, do your maintenance in a table, and give the user a text-file (which is then read by the form, etc.), which he can then adapt to his needs.

Regards,

Hilmar.


>I have an application written in english, but a prospective client that would like the printed forms to be in spanish. The application is an order entry system with forms such as order, picklist, invoice, credit memo, etc. The forms are simple data driven forms with labels for the field names. Is there a 'proper' way to implement multi-language forms? I was thinking of creating a table with fields for every label and have records for every language that it would support. Is this the right wayto go about this, or is there a simpler way?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Randy Wessels
>www.screentekcorp.com