Title: WPML for user-editable strings
Last modified: April 21, 2020

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# WPML for user-editable strings

 *  Resolved [theMikeD](https://wordpress.org/support/users/themiked/)
 * (@themiked)
 * [6 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wpml-for-user-editable-strings/)
 * In this article, there was some discussion about how to enable WPML to get at
   the user-editable strings, such as the “call to action” text:
 * [https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wpml-123/](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wpml-123/)
 * WPML has the ability to retrieve these strings when they are saved properly in
   the options table: [https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/translating-theme-options/](https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/translating-theme-options/)
 * This works because all options should be stored as serialized data, which WPML
   can then scan and do the substitutions on the fly, like it’s supposed to.
 * However while trying to do this, I discovered that you’re saving the options 
   for this plugin as JSON, and not as serialized data.
 * This is an unfortunate decision for a few reasons. Generally, as described here(
   [https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/61088/why-does-wordpress-use-serialize-rather-than-json-encode-for-the-options-table](https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/61088/why-does-wordpress-use-serialize-rather-than-json-encode-for-the-options-table))
   and here ([https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23753](https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23753)).
 * In my specific case, WPML now can’t “see into” JSON, making the plugin untranslatable.
 * I’m hoping the WPML will have a work-around for this atypical options data, but
   I’m not optimistic. Anyway, just some FYI in case this does ever get into your
   todo list.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  Thread Starter [theMikeD](https://wordpress.org/support/users/themiked/)
 * (@themiked)
 * [6 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wpml-for-user-editable-strings/#post-12720212)
 * As I suspected, WPML is unable to handle JSON: [https://wpml.org/forums/topic/translating-options-saved-as-json/](https://wpml.org/forums/topic/translating-options-saved-as-json/)
 *  Plugin Contributor [ShareThis](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sharethis/)
 * (@sharethis)
 * [6 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wpml-for-user-editable-strings/#post-12721384)
 * Hi there,
 * Thank you for contacting us,
 * We appreciate your recommendations and observations, our engineering team will
   work on this so that we can make the plugin more functional and update the method
   in which the data is saved. We will focus to make it more accessible for WPML.
 * In the meantime, if you have any other question please let us know.
 * Best,

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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 * Last activity: [6 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wpml-for-user-editable-strings/#post-12721384)
 * Status: resolved