Wording and languages
Change any sentence in turnda, from what your customers read to your own screens and the emails turnda sends you, or add a language turnda does not have, by one file. Nothing is machine-translated and nothing is paid.
Fix a phrase
| On the Wording tab | What happens |
|---|---|
| Area | One tile for each area (visitor pages, lobby TV and kiosk, messages to visitors, Queue and serving, appointments and calendar, setup, settings and locations, team, roles and sign-in, analytics and reports, billing and packages, messages to the owner, help and support, problem and error messages, menus, buttons and shared words, and Everything else for any sentence not filed elsewhere yet) and one for Everything. Each shows how many sentences it holds. On a narrow screen they are one dropdown. |
| Page or section | Narrows an area to one page or part of it. |
| Search | Finds a sentence by the words on it, in English or in the language you are editing, across everything. |
| Change this phrase | Opens when you pick a phrase. Type your wording there and save. |
| Live preview | Shows the phrase as a visitor will read it, as you type. |
| Use turnda's wording | Puts the phrase back to turnda's own words. Nothing else changes. |
| Edited by you | A badge on every phrase you changed. |
| Only phrases I edited | A filter that hides everything you have not touched. |
| Only phrases to re-check | A filter for phrases marked turnda changed the English — please re-check. turnda changed its own English after your wording was written, so look again that yours still fits. |
| Earlier versions | Lists the older wordings of one phrase. Press Put this back beside one to bring it back. |
Whole business or one location
You can set a phrase for the Whole business or for one location. The location wins: a visitor at that location reads the location's wording, otherwise your business-wide wording, otherwise turnda's own wording, otherwise English. If the language is a regional one such as Portuguese (Brazil) and a sentence is still missing, the visitor reads turnda's own Portuguese for it before English.
Add a language
turnda's six languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Indonesian and Arabic) are always there. You can add up to five more of your own — a seventh, an eighth and so on — by file.
- Press Add a language. Pick the language from the searchable Language list (the names are shown in your own language, and regional forms such as Portuguese (Brazil) are there too; turnda's own six cannot be added on their own), give it a name as your visitors know it, and switch on right to left if it reads that way.
- Under Languages and translation files, use the download buttons — Excel (the spreadsheet) or CSV. Every sentence is listed with the English and a note on where it appears. Pieces like {{number}} are left visible.
- Give the file to a translator. They fill in one column and leave the {{pieces}} exactly as they are.
- Press Upload a filled file. turnda checks it first, with Check the file.
- Fix any problems listed, then press Save N phrases. N is how many phrases the file filled in.
- Press Preview as a visitor to read it as they will. Check a few screens, including the one with the longest words.
- Press Publish. Unpublish takes it off again. Nothing is deleted. A mistaken upload can be taken back with Undo this upload. Remove on a language is different — after you confirm, it deletes the language and every phrase written in it, for good.
What “Check the file” refuses
| Problem | What it means |
|---|---|
| A {{piece}} is missing or changed | Words like {{number}} are filled in by turnda for each visitor. Keep them exactly as written. |
| Too long | A phrase is over the length limit. Shorten it. |
| HTML or a link | Plain words only. Take out any tags or web addresses. |
| The text looks garbled | Save the file as UTF-8 and upload it again. |
| A { } that is not a piece (owner emails) | The emails turnda sends you use single curly braces, like {name}. Keep each one, and do not add another brace. |
| An address in an owner email was changed | An address such as {base}/billing has to stay exactly as it is, or the link in the email stops working. |
| Each problem shows its tab and row number | For example “Visitor pages, row 14”. Sentences that pass are saved even if others are refused, so fix those rows and upload again. |
The one file
The Excel download gives you one file that holds every sentence you can change. It opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. Its tabs, in order:
| Tab | What is on it |
|---|---|
| Start here | A plain-English guide: what to fill in, what to keep, how to upload, what is checked. |
| Summary | Every tab and its sections with how many sentences, how many are filled in and how many are left. The numbers update as you type. |
| One tab per area | Visitor pages, Lobby TV and Kiosk, Messages to visitors, Queue and serving, Appointments and calendar, Setup, settings and locations, Team, roles and sign-in, Analytics and reports, Billing and packages, Messages to the owner, Help and support, Problem and error messages, Menus, buttons and shared words, and Everything else. |
On each area tab the rows are grouped by section (a page, or a part of one), with a note of where the sentence appears. The grey English column is locked; type in the yellow your text column. A cell turns red if your text is too long. Use the filter arrows on the first row to find a word or a section. You can fill the tabs in any order, or give each tab to a different person. turnda finds each row by its key, whichever tab it is on.
What visitors see
- A sentence the file left empty shows turnda's own wording (in English for a language you added), so a half-finished file never leaves a blank.
- Once published, the language appears in the visitor's language picker, shown as Name (translated by the business). It is also a choice for the default language on Visitor pages.
- Your team can choose it too: in the account menu, under the language choice, it appears below Translated by the business. Their own screens then use your words where you wrote them and English for the rest.
- The emails turnda sends you (sign-in, billing, closing and alert emails) use your wording in the language of the email. If a sentence cannot be filled in, turnda's own text is used, so the email always arrives.
- turnda does not review a business's translation. The business is responsible for it.
- You can also download and upload for the six turnda languages, to fix many phrases in one go.
What it covers
| Covered | Not covered |
|---|---|
| Join, Kiosk, Appointment page, tracking page and Lobby TV, and the consent wording | The legal pages: Terms, Privacy, the data processing agreement and the list of sub-processors |
| The wording of the emails visitors get, and of the two fixed WhatsApp messages (Messages to visitors) | The Help Centre and the turnda website |
| The whole owner and staff app, and the error messages it shows | The “Powered by turnda” line |
| The emails turnda sends the owner | The turnda wordmark |
| Your own per-moment wording on the Email page still wins where you have typed it. A phrase it beats is marked Email page wording used instead, and opening it says why. | The sample-line notice |
Who can edit
| Role | Can change wording |
|---|---|
| Owner | Always. |
| Manager | Only if the owner switches on Let managers change wording (off by default), and only the customer-page and customer-message wording of their own locations. The words of the app, its error messages and the owner emails are for the whole business, so they stay with the owner. |
| Staff | Never. |
If something looks wrong, turnda's own team can switch a business's wording off. Everyone then sees turnda's wording, in the pages, your screens and the owner emails; nothing you wrote is deleted.
Related: Which language visitors see · Wording & merge fields · Manager permissions