---
title: "Series, editions & translations"
description: "Group books into an ordered series, and create translations and separate editions that stay linked to the original, with a side-by-side translation view. Includes the 54 languages Galley supports and the book faces each one is set in."
source: https://usegalley.com/docs/series-and-translations
---
# Series, editions & translations

Most novelists end up with more than one book, and sometimes more than one version
of the same book. Galley keeps all of that organised without turning your dashboard into a mess:
a series is an ordered group of works, and a translation or edition is its own book quietly linked
back to the original.

## Grouping books into a series

Writing a trilogy or a longer run? Open a book's **Metadata** (or its
Book Settings from the dashboard), find **Series**, type the series name, and give
the book its number. Type the name once and it autocompletes after that, so every book lands in
the same series. On the dashboard, the books in a series gather into one ordered block, each
showing its series name and number, so Book 2 always sits after Book 1.

## Editions and translations

A translation or a new edition isn't a mode you switch on inside a book. It's a book of its own,
linked back to the original, so everything that works for a normal book (export, trim, fonts, its
own ISBN and cover) works for it too. Two ways to make one:

- From a book's **Metadata** page, under **Editions &
translations**: **Create translation** or
**New edition**.
- From the dashboard's **New book** window, on the
**From existing** tab.

### What a translation does

Pick a target language (there are [48 of them](#languages); it has to be different from
the original's). Galley then:

- **Copies the structure**: Every chapter and part, in order, so the translation has the same skeleton as the original.

- **Copies the story bible**: Characters, locations, glossary, references, world-building, research, and the style sheet come across, so you have the cast and terms to localise. (The timeline is left out for now, because its links point back at the original's chapters.)

- **Leaves the prose empty**: The chapters start blank, ready for you to translate, with the original text shown right beside them (see below).

- **Sets the language**: So the translation exports correctly on its own terms: hyphenated and spellchecked in its language, and tagged that way in the EPUB.

If the original never had an author set, the translation takes your
[profile name](https://usegalley.com/docs/account-and-devices#profile) so it isn't left authorless.

### What a new edition does

An edition stays in the same language and copies the whole book, text and all, so you can revise
this version without touching the original: a revised edition, a large-print version, whatever you
need.

## The side-by-side translation view

This is the part that makes translating in Galley pleasant. Open a chapter of a
translation and the editor splits in two: the **original** on the left, read-only,
under an "Original · *language*" header, and your **translation** on the
right, where you type. No flipping between two windows, no lost place. You render the master
paragraph by paragraph with it sitting right there.

*Galley translation view with the original English chapter read-only on the left and the French translation being written on the right.*

Editing a translation: the original chapter on the left, read-only, and your translation on the right.

## Which languages Galley knows

Every book carries one language, set on its **Metadata** page or chosen when
you create a translation. Galley knows 54 languages. The language does four jobs: it spellchecks
your prose against your own browser's dictionary, it tags the EPUB so a reading device knows what it
is holding, it hyphenates the print PDF when you justify the text, and it decides which
[quote marks](https://usegalley.com/docs/book-design#language) your straight quotes turn into.

The full list, each one linking to what Galley does with that language:
[English](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-english) (US and UK), [French](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-french), [German](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-german), [Spanish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-spanish), [Italian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-italian),
[Portuguese](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-portuguese), [Portuguese (Brazil)](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-portuguese), [Dutch](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-dutch), [Swedish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-swedish), [Danish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-danish), [Norwegian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-norwegian) (Bokmål and Nynorsk), [Finnish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-finnish), [Icelandic](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-icelandic), [Irish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-irish),
[Welsh](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-welsh), [Basque](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-basque), [Catalan](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-catalan), [Galician](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-galician), [Polish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-polish),
[Czech](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-czech), [Slovak](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-slovak), [Hungarian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-hungarian), [Romanian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-romanian), [Estonian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-estonian), [Lithuanian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-lithuanian), [Latvian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-latvian), [Slovenian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-slovenian), [Croatian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-croatian), [Serbian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-serbian), [Bulgarian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-bulgarian), [Russian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-russian), [Ukrainian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-ukrainian), [Greek](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-greek),
[Turkish](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-turkish), [Arabic](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-arabic), [Persian (Farsi)](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-persian), Hebrew, [Hindi](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-hindi), [Bengali](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-bengali), [Urdu](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-urdu), [Japanese](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-japanese), [Chinese (Simplified)](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-chinese), [Chinese (Traditional)](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-chinese), [Korean](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-korean), [Thai](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-thai), [Pashto](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-pashto), [Sindhi](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-sindhi), [Kurdish (Sorani)](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-kurdish), [Uyghur](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-uyghur), [Vietnamese](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-vietnamese), [Indonesian](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-indonesian) and [Malay](https://usegalley.com/book-writing-software-malay).

Every language above has a page of its own except Hebrew: which faces it is offered, how its
script is typeset, what the exports do with it, and where a book in it can be sold. Hebrew is
the one still to be written.

### Hyphenation

Galley hyphenates 35 of them automatically. That only matters if you justify your text, which is
off by default: ragged right never needs it. The nineteen with no hyphenation patterns are
Portuguese (Brazil), Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malay, Arabic, Persian (Farsi), Hebrew, Hindi, Bengali,
Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi, Kurdish (Sorani), Uyghur, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese
(Traditional), Korean and Thai.

### What the print PDF sets

All of it. The PDF embeds one of Galley's [book faces](https://usegalley.com/docs/book-design#typeface),
and the face you are offered is chosen for your book's language: Amiri for Arabic, Frank Ruhl
Libre for Hebrew, Shippori Mincho for Japanese, and so on down the list. A face that cannot render
your script is never in the dropdown, so the trap of picking one and finding out at export time
does not exist.

Two things before you start a translation. **Urdu is set in Nastaliq**,
not in the Naskh faces Arabic uses, because they are not interchangeable to a reader. And
**there is no italic outside the Latin alphabet.** Those scripts have no italic
tradition, and emphasis in them is its own convention rather than a slant. The
[typeface page](https://usegalley.com/docs/book-design#typeface) lists every face by language.

## How they show up

Translations and editions don't clutter your dashboard. Each one tucks under its original as a
small row you can click to open. The original is the master;
its editions and translations are created and reached from there, and also listed on its
**Editions & translations** panel. Because each is a real book, it carries its
own metadata: a different ISBN, a different cover, its own blurb.

🌍 Working with a translator is on the way. You'll be able to invite someone to work only on a
translation, in only the languages you allow, without ever touching your original.

[PreviousYour first book](https://usegalley.com/docs/your-first-book) [NextThe editor](https://usegalley.com/docs/the-editor)
