Is gettext appropriate for internationalizing user help documentation?

Posted by Richard JP Le Guen on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Richard JP Le Guen
Published on 2012-06-11T15:07:06Z Indexed on 2012/06/11 16:47 UTC
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documentation

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i18n

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gettext

On my project, we have po files to internationalize/translate various labels, error messages, button-text etc. We also have separate po files for the entirety of our help documentation, which is included in the product.

Is this an appropriate use of gettext - putting entire documents in po files as opposed to just labels and messages?

The format has been made all the more complicated because sometimes (for tooltips or "what's this" icons) only a small part of the help doc is needed, resulting in single phrases/paragraphs being entries in the po file, which are then concatenated together when the user views the help... making the actual act of translation challenging.

Is there a better way to internationalize end user help documentation?

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