Multilingual Annotations in Rhino – Workflow Like AutoCAD Keynote System?

Rhino
1

Hej everyone,

I’m looking for advice or ideas from the community on how to manage multilingual annotations in Rhino, especially when collaborating across international teams (i.e., different companies, different languages).

Let me explain what we’ve done successfully in AutoCAD and what I’m trying to replicate or approximate in Rhino:

AutoCAD Workflow – Keynote & Excel Setup

We used an Excel-based keynote system that worked like this:

  • Column A: Key (e.g., 0001)
  • Column B: English text (e.g., “Site Plan”)
  • Column C: French translation (e.g., “Plan de masse”)

In AutoCAD layouts, we placed a keynote like 0001 which is linked to the database, and the software would read and display Column B’s corresponding values. If we wanted to generate French outputs, we simply swapped columns B and C in the Excel – and all the keynotes updated accordingly.

This setup allowed us to:

  • Maintain consistency across multiple drawings and files
  • Centralize translation efforts – one spreadsheet could feed many DWGs
  • Collaborate efficiently with international partners who could translate the Excel (instead of relying on automatic translation tools, which often fail with technical terms)

Goal in Rhino

Now I’m working in Rhino (mostly architectural projects in English or Danish) and need to deliver outputs in another language.

Is there a way to achieve a similar workflow in Rhino?
Or at least a workable workaround that lets me:

  • Keep my working annotations in English
  • Translate them via a spreadsheet
  • And switch language for the layout display?

Ideally this would work across multiple Rhino files

Any insight, plug-ins, or hacks you’ve used to solve this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Best,
Thomas

2

I kept digging about that and probably found a solutions that is almost as good (and probably good enough) :

You can use Document user text, and each text can be a formula to refer to specifics keys. (meaning all the text has to be in a table). You can then export that as a CSV with column one being the key, and column B Being the value to display (the text i want in my annotation) And I can have a third column for translation.

You can easily swap the colums with original and translated content.

The only drawback is that you need to delete all your user text and before your import you table when you add new entries or update the table/translate it otherwise you get duplicated keys (see below)

If anyone knows how to smooth that part that would be great (what if you have some user text you want to keep and which is not part of your CSV), but that aside - that works as intended ! :slight_smile:

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