Internationalisation

quarto-coursegen supports i18n strings in generated .qmd stubs (labels, section headings, navigation text, etc.). The active language is set once in course.yaml.

Setting the language

course:
  language: "de"    # default: "en"

Built-in languages: en (English) and de (German).

Resolution order

Language strings are resolved from highest to lowest priority:

Inline i18n: overrides in course.yaml
First matching {lang}.yaml found across lang directories (local overlay first, built-in fallback)
Built-in English defaults — always the base

Adding a new language

quarto-coursegen init copies lang/en.yaml and lang/de.yaml into your course project. To add a new language, create lang/{code}.yaml following the same structure:

# lang/fr.yaml
nav:
  home: "Accueil"
  modules: "Modules"
  …

Partial files are fine — only the keys present override the English defaults. Omitted keys fall back to English automatically.

Inline overrides

Override individual strings directly in course.yaml without creating a separate lang file:

course:
  language: de
  i18n:
    nav:
      home: Startseite    # overrides the German lang file value

Inline overrides have the highest priority — they override both the lang file and the built-in defaults.

Custom lang directory

Pass a custom directory at the command line:

quarto-coursegen generate --lang-dir /path/to/my/lang

Or configure it in coursegen.yaml:

lang: lang/

When multiple lang directories are configured, the first directory that contains a matching {lang}.yaml wins. The built-in lang files act as the final fallback.