Setting up languages

This is where you define the languages you want to localize your site / documentation for. This configuration option is a list of language definition key/value mappings which allows you to localize almost every aspect of the MkDocs configuration, theme included!

For each language, you can for example localize (override) the MkDocs site_name, site_description, copyright etc... and even change (override) the theme options such as its color or logo!

Info

The language locale selected as being the default one (default: true) will be the one built on the root path / of the site.

Option: languages

Minimal example building only one language as the site root:

plugins:
  - i18n:
    languages:
        - locale: en
          name: English
          build: true
          default: true

Per language build options

option	required	default	description
locale	yes		A 2-letter ISO-639-1 language code (en) or 5-letter language code with added territory/region/country (en_US)
name	yes		The display name of the language
default	no	false	Specify that this locale is the default one, you must set it as true to at least one language!
build	no	true	Control whether to build or not the given language version (useful when using the ENV! feature and speed up build testing)
link	no	/<locale>/	Used for the mkdocs-material language switcher. Absolute path used as the base of the language switcher
fixed_link	no		Used for the mkdocs-material language switcher. Fixed URL link used in the language switcher for this language
nav_translations	no		Key/value mapping used to translate navigation items
admonition_translations	no		Key/value mapping used to translate admonitions

Minimal example with two languages:

plugins:
  - i18n:
    languages:
        - locale: en
          name: English
          build: true
          default: true
        - locale: fr
          name: Français
          build: true

Additional per language overrides options

Warning

Any option you override here MUST be set (even to its default) on its main mkdocs.yml section before being overridden on one or more languages.

option	required	default	description
copyright	no		Override the copyright option of mkdocs.yml
extra	no	true	Override the extra options of mkdocs.yml
nav	no	true	Override the nav option of mkdocs.yml to specify a per-language navigation
site_author	no	true	Override the site_author option of mkdocs.yml
site_description	no	true	Override the site_description option of mkdocs.yml
site_name	no	true	Override the site_name option of mkdocs.yml
site_url	no	true	Override the site_url option of mkdocs.yml
theme	no	true	Override the theme options of mkdocs.yml

Overriding MkDocs options per language is easy, here are some examples.

This example shows how to make the French (fr) version of the site use the red palette instead of the default blue:

site_name: "MkDocs static i18n plugin documentation (en)"
site_description: "English description"

theme:
  name: material
  palette:
    primary: blue

plugins:
  - i18n:
    languages:
      - locale: en
        default: true
        name: English
        build: true
      - locale: fr
        name: Français
        build: true
        site_name: "Documentation du plugin MkDocs static i18n (fr)"
        site_description: "Description Française"
        theme:
          palette:
            primary: red

This example shows how to make the French (fr) light version of the site use the red palette instead of the default blue and the French (fr) dark version use the pink palette instead of blue grey:

site_name: "MkDocs static i18n plugin documentation (en)"
site_description: "English description"

theme:
  name: material
  palette:
    # Palette toggle for light mode
    - media: "(prefers-color-scheme: light)"
      primary: blue
      scheme: default
      toggle:
        icon: material/weather-sunny 
        name: Switch to dark mode
    # Palette toggle for dark mode
    - media: "(prefers-color-scheme: dark)"
      primary: blue grey
      scheme: slate
      toggle:
        icon: material/weather-night
        name: Switch to light mode

plugins:
  - i18n:
    languages:
      - locale: en
        default: true
        name: English
        build: true
      - locale: fr
        name: Français
        build: true
        site_name: "Documentation du plugin MkDocs static i18n (fr)"
        site_description: "Description Française"
        theme:
          palette:
            # Palette toggle for light mode
            - media: "(prefers-color-scheme: light)"
              primary: red
              scheme: default
            # Palette toggle for dark mode
            - media: "(prefers-color-scheme: dark)"
              primary: pink
              scheme: slate