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Translation System

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SECTION 18 — TRANSLATION SYSTEM

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18.1 Overview

The translation system uses Google Translate API to produce parallel multilingual versions of any document. The original document is always preserved — translation never overwrites the source.

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18.2 Initiating Translation

  • Teacher clicks “Translate” from the canvas action menu.
  • A language selection modal opens showing available target languages.
  • Teacher selects one or more target languages.
  • Each selected language triggers a separate backend API call to Google Translate.

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18.3 Translation Output

  • For each target language: a new parallel document version is created in the database.
  • The parallel document is linked to the original via doc-id reference.
  • Each translated document carries its own doc-status, locale, and full version history.
  • Translation metadata in the original document’s metadata.translations array is updated: \{ language-code, language-name, doc-id (of the linked translated document) \}.

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18.4 Language Switcher

  • A language switcher component appears in the document canvas header once any translation exists.
  • Teacher can toggle between the original and any translated versions in real-time.
  • The switcher shows: language name, language code, a flag icon (optional).

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18.5 Multilingual PPTX

  • When exporting to PPTX, Teacher has the option to include translated version(s).
  • The backend merges original and selected translated JSON into a single unified .pptx file where translated slides are appended after the original slides (or interleaved — to be determined by product owner upon implementation review).

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18.6 Multilingual PDF (Editor Pipeline)

During the Editor’s PDF pipeline, the following options are available per document: These options are configured by the Teacher or Editor on a per-document basis.

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18.7 Per-Type Translation Toggle

  • Translation can be disabled per document type in Teacher settings.
  • Configurable toggles: Newsletter (default ON), Compilation (default ON), Magazine (default ON), Mindmap (default OFF — Mindmap translation is disabled by default as it may distort visual node layout).
  • The metadata.translation-disabled-for array reflects the current toggles.
  • Before calling Google Translate API for any document, the backend must check this array and skip if the document type is listed.