WPML and Multilingual Support
Smart Phone Field is built with multilingual stores in mind. This article explains how the plugin works with WPML and what translation support is included out of the box.
WPML String Translation#
Smart Phone Field registers its translatable strings with WPML String Translation. This means you can translate the phone field label and any plugin-generated text directly from the WPML interface without editing any plugin files.
How to translate the phone field label
- Make sure WPML and WPML String Translation are installed and active
- Go to WPML > String Translation in your WordPress admin
- Search for “Smart Phone Field” or “phone” to find the plugin strings
- Click the translation icon next to the string you want to translate
- Enter your translation and save
The translated label will appear automatically on the checkout page for visitors viewing your site in that language.
Bundled Translations#
Smart Phone Field ships with built-in translations for over 20 languages. These translations cover the plugin interface and are loaded automatically based on the active WordPress language. No setup is required — if your site is running in one of the supported languages, the plugin will use the correct translation automatically.
Bundled languages include Arabic, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, Turkish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Hungarian, and Romanian.
If your language is not in this list, the plugin will fall back to English. You can add your own translation via WPML String Translation or by contributing a translation file.
How the Country Dropdown Behaves in Multilingual Stores#
The country names inside the dropdown are provided by the intl-tel-input library and are displayed in English by default. This is a limitation of the underlying library rather than the plugin itself. The search functionality still works correctly — customers can type in the search box and find their country.
The phone field label and any validation messages generated by Smart Phone Field are fully translatable via WPML as described above.
RTL Language Support#
Smart Phone Field includes full right-to-left layout support for languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Farsi. When a visitor views your site in an RTL language, the phone field layout flips automatically:
- The flag and dial code button moves to the right side of the field
- The number input extends to the left
- The dropdown alignment adjusts to suit RTL reading direction
No configuration is required. RTL support activates automatically based on the active language direction in WordPress.
Polylang#
Smart Phone Field is compatible with Polylang. While the plugin is primarily tested with WPML, the translatable strings follow WordPress standard practices and work with Polylang’s string translation interface.
Language Switcher and Checkout#
If a customer switches language mid-session using a language switcher, the phone field will reload with the correct translation for the new language on their next page load. The field does not switch language dynamically within the same page session without a reload.