How you can contribute to add new languages and improve existing ones

Last modified:

November 19, 2025

Overview

The Light for public health website presents consensus statements about the non‑visual effects of ocular light exposure and provides translations in many languages. To make these messages accessible to more people, the project welcomes contributions from volunteers who can add new language translations or improve existing ones. This guide explains who can contribute and how to prepare and submit translations through GitHub.

Who can contribute?

  • Native speakers only. You should be a fluent native speaker of the language you want to translate into. Colloquial and technical nuances are important for accurate messaging.
  • Two translators minimum. At least two people must sign off on the translation. Both should be native speakers and should agree on the wording; this helps catch mistakes or ambiguous phrasing.
  • Relevant expertise. Contributors should have a background in lighting research, practice, or a related field. This ensures that technical terms are translated correctly and that the meaning of the consensus statements is preserved.

Preparing the translation file

All translations are stored as Excel workbooks in the assets/translations folder of the repository. Each workbook contains several sheets for key messages and contributor details, and the site scripts extract the content automatically. Follow these steps to prepare your file:

  1. Use an existing file as a template. Download one of the existing workbooks from the assets/translations folder (e.g. German.Germany.de‑DE.xlsx) and use it as a template. The column structure and sheet names must remain identical—do not add or delete columns or sheets, and complete every cell. This is important because the scripts expect a specific structure when generating web pages.

  2. Fill in your translation. Translate all the statements in the template. Do not leave any cells blank that weren’t in the template. Do not leave any prior translation from the template. If a phrase does not require translation (for example, a proper noun), repeat the original text in your language’s script.

  3. Provide contributor details. In the “Contributors” sheet of the workbook, list each translator’s name, affiliation and ORCID identifier. The ORCID must be written as a pure identifier (e.g. 0000‑0002‑8572‑9268) without the https://orcid.org prefix and an affiliation must be provided for every contributor; the Excel files of existing translations show the formatting.

  4. Save the file with the correct name. The naming convention is:

    Language.Country.languageShortCode‑CountryShortCode.xlsx

    where Language is the full language name (capitalised), Country is the country or region where the variant is spoken, and languageShortCode‑CountryShortCode is the standard ISO language and country code. Existing files follow this pattern. For example, Bengali.Bengal.bn‑BD.xlsx for the Bengali translation, Dutch.Netherlands.nl‑NL.xlsx for the Dutch translation, and Portuguese.Brazil.pt‑BR.xlsx for the Portuguese translation spoken in Brazil.

    Choose a filename consistent with your language and region.

  5. Double‑check your work. Ask your co‑translator(s) to review the finished workbook. Make sure there are no extra cells, comments or formatting changes.

Naming examples

The table below illustrates how the naming convention works for a few existing languages:

Language Country Example file name
Bengali Bengal Bengali.Bengal.bn‑BD.xlsx
Dutch Netherlands Dutch.Netherlands.nl‑NL.xlsx
French France French.France.fr‑FR.xlsx
Portuguese Brazil Portuguese.Brazil.pt‑BR.xlsx
Turkish Turkey Turkish.Turkey.tr‑TR.xlsx

Step‑by‑step GitHub workflow

If you are new to GitHub, the following steps describe how to submit your translation via a pull request. A pull request is a request for the maintainers to review and merge your changes into the main project. You do not need to be an expert developer to follow these steps.

  1. Create a GitHub account. Visit github.com and sign up for a free account. Verify your email address when prompted.

  2. Fork the repository. Navigate to the Ladenburg Consensus Statements repository and click the Fork button at the top right. This makes a copy of the repository under your own account.

  3. Add your translation file. In your forked repository, browse to assets/translations and click Add file → Upload files. Drag and drop your translation workbook into this folder. Enter a short descriptive commit message when prompted (e.g., “Add Italian translation”).

  4. Update the _quarto.yml file. Open _quarto.yml1 (you can edit files directly in the GitHub web interface). Under the “Consensus statements” menu, add a new entry for your language in alphabetical order to the existing ones. Each language entry consists of a text: field (the language name) and an href: field linking to the Quarto file. For example, to add Bengali the _quarto.yml contains entries in alphabetical order from A to Z; the Bengali entry looks like:

- text: "Bengali"
  href: consensus-statements_bn.qmd

Replace Bengali and bn with your language name and the language shortcode used in your Excel file. Keep the list in alphabetical order so that the navigation menu remains organised.

  1. Commit your changes. After editing _quarto.yml, scroll to the bottom of the page, enter a commit message (e.g., “Add Bengali to navigation”), and click Commit changes.

  2. Create a pull request. Go to the main page of your fork and click Pull request. GitHub will compare your fork with the original repository. Click Create pull request, provide a short title and description (mention the language and confirm that two native speakers signed off), and then click Create pull request again to submit.

  3. Respond to feedback. Project maintainers will review your pull request. They may ask clarifying questions or request changes. Once the pull request is approved, your translation will be merged and the website will be updated.

Updating an existing translation

To improve an existing language, you only need to update the corresponding Excel workbook in assets/translations. Do not modify other files or rename the workbook. Simply download the current file, make the necessary improvements, and submit your changes via a pull request following the steps above. The build scripts will automatically extract the updated content.

Need help?

If you have questions about the translation process or need assistance with GitHub, feel free to open an issue on the GitHub repository or contact the maintainers through the email listed on the site’s imprint page. Thank you for helping to make the consensus statements accessible to everyone!

Footnotes

  1. This is the file in the main repo, but you have to edit your forked version.↩︎