Localize your docs with variants in GitBook

Learn how to use variants in GitBook to translate and manage different versions of your docs site for multiple languages

This guide will walk you through the process of setting up variants, organizing your content, and ensuring your readers can access the right version of your documentation, in the language they want.

First, you need to create your content and localize it to the various languages you need — and there are a few ways to do it. You can translate part of your content using GitBook AI, or other AI services such as DeepL, ChatGPT or Claude.

Note: You will need to create a space for each translated version of your docs in GitBook. You can then link all your translated spaces to a single docs site.

Once you have created all the spaces you need and localized your content, it’s time to set up your docs site in GitBook.

1

Create a site

Click on the Docs sites option in your sidebar and choose New Site, then follow the set-up process.

2

Go to your site’s settings

Once you’ve completed the site creation process, click on Settings in the top right-hand corner of your site’s dashboard, then choose the Structure tab on the left-hand side.

3

Add your documentation space

Your newly-created site will be empty, with no linked content. To add your documentation, click Link and existing space and choose the primary space you want to publish.

This will be the default space when people visit your docs, so make sure to select the space in your primary language.

4

Add your variants

You’ll see that the space you add will immediately appear in the structure table. Below it, click the Add variant button. You can scroll or search through all your spaces — select a space that contains a translated version of your docs to add it as a variant

Repeat this process for each of the languages you wish to publish. You can reorder your spaces at any time by clicking and dragging the drag handle on the left-hand side of a variant, and set a default by clicking the Actions menu on the right-hand side of the variant.

5

Publish your site

Now it’s time to get your docs online! Go back to your site main page and hit Publish to push it live.

With all the steps done, you'll have a full site set up with multiple localized versions of your documentation. The structure will look something like this:

Site settings structure with multiple variants

And your published site will have a dropdown for you to select each language individually:

Different variants in a published site