Can I use a vector editor in French, German or Spanish?
Vectornation by Zaweba runs in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch or Portuguese as well as English; switch in Preferences under User interface.
Yes. Vectornation by Zaweba shows its menus, tools, panels and dialogs in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch or Portuguese as well as English. Change it under Edit > Preferences > User interface > Language. Your drawings are not affected, so you can switch whenever you like.
Learning a complex program is hard enough without doing it in a second language. A designer who thinks in German, or a print shop in Spain where staff share one PC, gets a lot out of menus that read naturally.
Switching the language
Open Edit > Preferences, go to User interface and choose a language. The whole interface follows: menu names, tool names, panel titles and the text in dialogs. Switch back the same way.
Because the choice belongs to the program, not the document, a file made in one language opens normally for someone using another. A French designer and an English printer can pass the same file back and forth.
Finding your way in a new language
If you have learned the program in English and switch, or the other way round, the menus will look unfamiliar at first. Help > Find a command (Ctrl+/) searches commands by name, which is a quick way to find a command in the language now on screen.
The help browser (F1) opens at the page for the tool you are using, so you can read about a tool in context rather than hunting for it. Spend ten minutes clicking through the main menus after a switch and most of the new names fall into place quickly, because the menus keep the same order and the tools keep the same places.
Keyboard shortcuts stay the same whatever the language. They follow Illustrator's Windows shortcuts by default and can be changed in Edit > Keyboard shortcuts. That makes switching languages less disruptive, because the keys you already know keep working.
The text you type is a separate matter
The interface language is not the same as the language of your artwork. You can design in any language your fonts support. Vectornation handles right-to-left Arabic and Hebrew, kashida justification, and East Asian text with kinsoku line breaks, tate-chu-yoko and ruby, whatever language the menus are in.
The built-in spell checker uses a UK English dictionary, and hyphenation uses UK English patterns. For copy in French, German, Spanish or another language, check the wording another way, for instance by having a native speaker read the proof. The Proof sheet with a sign-off box is a handy way to record that they have.
For teams and teaching
In a studio or classroom with people who speak different languages, each person can set the language that suits them on their own PC while working on the same files. Tutorials written for the English menus can still be followed by someone using another language, as long as they know the shortcuts or use Find a command to locate the command by name.
Other accessibility settings
Language is one part of making the app comfortable to use. Vectornation also works with screen readers, which hear the canvas, the selection and changes, and has a keyboard pointer for working without a mouse.
Vectornation by Zaweba is free software for Windows that works offline and needs no account, whichever language you choose.
