While Zotero is primarily developed in English, many parts of the Zotero ecosystem can be translated into other languages. These include the Zotero client, the wiki documentation, and the Citation Style Language (CSL) citation styles.

The Zotero client software is currently localized into over 40 languages. To localize the Zotero client in your favorite language, sign up for free at https://www.transifex.net, go to the Transifex Zotero project page, https://www.transifex.net/projects/p/zotero/, and join a language translator team.

You can test translations by changing the language of the Zotero interface.

The contents of the Zotero wiki can be translated into a number of languages: at the top of each wiki page, a row of buttons shows the available languages. A language button is blue when a wiki page already exists for that language; otherwise it is grey. Clicking a language button moves you to the version of the page for that particular language.

The languages currently available are (languages abbreviations follow ISO 639-1):

• en - English
• ar - Arabic
• cs - Czech
• da - Danish
• de - German
• es - Spanish
• fr - French
• hu - Hungarian
• it - Italian
• ja - Japanese
• ko - Korean
• nl - Dutch
• pl - Polish
• pt - Portuguese
• ru - Russian
• sl - Slovenian
• sv - Swedish
• zh - Chinese

If you would like to translate the wiki into a language that is currently not available, feel free to post a request on the Zotero forums to have that language added.

For editing the Zotero wiki, see the information on writing Zotero documentation.

Zotero uses Citation Style Language (CSL) styles to format citations and bibliographies. CSL has advanced support for (automatic) localization of terms (e.g. “and” [English] and “und” [German]), date formats (e.g. mm/dd/yyyy [American English] and dd/mm/yyyy [Dutch]), and grammar rules.

CSL styles rely on a shared set of language-specific CSL locale files. Localization data can also be embedded in the styles themselves to override the data stored in these locale files.

To learn more about the localization support of CSL, read the sections of the CSL specification on locale files, embedding localization data in styles, and the default-locale attribute.

To learn how to contribute to the collection of CSL locale files, and to see the status of translation, see the CSL locale repository wiki.