System configuration
Internationalization
Go to transaction I18N and from the list choose I18N Customizing -> I18N Customizing -> I18N System Configuration.
Here, inside NLS Setting Maintenance, insert the data for language you are going to install. Afterwards click on “Simulate” icon. Example:
Output of this simulation will show some information about installed languages. The most important part here is named “Tasks”. Here you can find tasks that needs to be done to make language installation fully functional. In this example only instance parameter has to be update with new language (followed by restart).
Parameter changes
To change parameters go to transaction RZ10, pick the instance profile (if you have more than one instance then you have to make the same change for all of them), check the “Extended maintenance” box and click on “Change” button.
Look for parameters that contain string “installed_languages” and change their values according to recommendation from simulation that was done before.
Now save the instance profile, activate it and restart the SAP.
When system is up, run again transaction I18N and from the list choose I18N Customizing -> I18N Customizing -> I18N System Configuration. Now select the language, click on “Activate” icon and you will see the activation log which should be successful now.
Language installation
Classify language
Run transaction SMLT and click on “Language” icon in top left corner. In the new pop-up window insert the data for new language classification, save and confirm the changes.
Main language import
Now select the language you have just classified and from the top menu choose Language -> Import Package (or click on the package icon, or press Shift+F6).
In the new window specify the location where installation packages can be found and click on “Find Package(s)” button (or click on “From Front End” button when you want to install from front-end). Once package is found, select it, specify the execution details, click on “Execute” and confirm to start the import process.
From transaction SMLT you can monitor the import process and check the import logs too.
Import texts from installed support packs
Select the language which you want edit and from top menu choose Special Actions -> Import Support Packages (or press Shift+F11).
In new dialog you will see all imported support packages. All packages that contains language text and that must be imported will be selected automatically so you need just press the “Arrow” button to continue to next step.
In this step SAP checks if all data files exists. If some does not you have to upload them to server. You can also specify the path where data files are stored or you can deselect files you don’t want to import (but only from the end of this queue). When you are done and all selected rows are green press the “Arrow” button to continue.
Here you can review the import queue for the last time. When everything is correct press “Import Language Data” button to start the import process.
In the pop-up window you can specify how to handle existing translations. You should overwrite them with the newer one delivered in the support packages.
PS: this step is optional but recommended. All support package texts are fully translated so by finishing this step you will increase the overall translation rate. However, all not-translated texts will be supplemented with texts from other language (this will be done in next step).
Supplement not translated texts
The only 2 fully translated languages in SAP are English and German language. For all other supported languages not all texts are translated. Therefore you have to perform the supplementation. This means, that all not translated texts will be displayed in either English or German language. To do the supplementation go to transaction SMLT, select the language you want to update and choose Language -> Supplement Language (or press Shift+F7 or click on the “+” icon next to the language).
In new pop-up window enter the description text for the supplementation, details for the background job and tables for the supplementation. Supplementation is client specific process so you have to run it in every productive client. In this example I have executed it in client 000 for cross-client and system tables with these settings:
And in productive client for client-specific and customizing tables with these settings:
By finishing this step the installation is complete and you can try to log-in with new language.
There can be only one editing process per language running. That means all of above steps has to be done one-by-one and they can not run in parallel (also the supplementation has to be executed client-by-client).