Atlas has three separate language settings. What Atlas can write a page in, what it can translate a page variation into, and what the Atlas admin interface is shown in are three different things. All three offer the same 36 languages: every language the Shopify admin offers.
In this article:
Writing a page
The language Atlas writes new pages in. Set it as Store language in the store, product page, landing page and new angle wizards. English is the default, and the other languages follow from A to Z.
36 languages:
Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese.
The page is written in that language from the start, rather than written in English and translated.
Translating a page variation
A page variation can translate an existing published page into another language, keeping the layout, product, images and offer identical.
The same 36 languages as writing a page, listed A to Z with English last.
ℹ️ The difference is what you get: generating writes a new page in that language, while a variation translates a page you have already published and keeps everything else identical.
The Atlas interface
The Atlas admin app itself is available in every language the Shopify admin offers, 36 in total. This is what you see while working, not what your customers see.
Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese.
This follows your Shopify admin language and has no effect on the pages you build. Arabic, Hebrew and Urdu are translated, but the layout is not mirrored, so the interface still reads left to right.
Which to use when
You want | Use |
A new page in a language other than English | Set the language when generating |
An existing page in a second language | A page variation with |
Your whole store in several languages | Shopify's own translation tools |
The Atlas app in your language | Change your Shopify admin language |
Translating pages Atlas already published
A page variation creates a separate page at its own URL in the new language. That is useful for pointing a language-specific ad campaign at it.
It is not the same as making your store multilingual. For that, use Shopify's Markets and the Translate & Adapt app, which serve the right language to the right visitor automatically at the same URL.
💡 Use a language variation for a targeted campaign, and Shopify's translation tools for genuine multilingual selling. They solve different problems, and using a variation as a substitute for proper localisation means visitors never get routed to it.