Understand taxonomy name and description

An enabled taxonomy has one fixed content contract: POM Translate collects its term name and, when present, its description. The settings screen intentionally does not offer separate switches for these fields.

Name

Every successfully loaded term contributes a name row. This is the human-readable label that WordPress may display in archives, filters, breadcrumbs, post metadata, and selectors. Changing the source name and saving the term updates its source row.

The name is not the slug. Translating the name changes visible wording; localized routing is managed separately.

Description

A non-empty term description contributes a description row. POM Translate can preserve common inline elements such as links, emphasis, spans, code, marks, and images as protected structure while exposing the surrounding text for translation.

If the source description becomes empty and the term is saved, the parser no longer marks that description as current and reconciles the stored term rows. Do not add placeholder prose solely to force a translation field to appear.

Verify both contexts

1. Save a term in an enabled taxonomy.
2. Open Translations → Translate contents for the target locale.
3. Confirm the name row exists.
4. Confirm the description row exists only when the source has a description.
5. Translate the visible wording without modifying protected placeholders.
6. Save the translations.
7. Check an archive heading and a template location that renders the description.
8. Open Translate URLs separately if the localized slug also needs to change.

Common misunderstandings

• A translated name does not automatically create a translated slug.
• Enabling the post type that uses a taxonomy does not enable that taxonomy.
• Disabling one optional taxonomy does not affect categories or tags.
• Terms saved before activation are not collected retroactively until they are saved again.
• A theme may never render term descriptions even though WordPress stores them.

Choose taxonomy participation with Enable translation for a taxonomy.