We’re excited to announce that the Office Store is now accepting listings in four additional languages!
Whether you have existing apps listed in the Office Store or you’re ready to add your first new app, you can now list additional languages for your app: French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. In early summer this year, we plan to open stores for markets that are associated with these four languages as well as the English-language markets beyond the United States. Now is a great time to be among the first apps listed in these new markets.
Three steps to preparing your app for release in additional languages
1. Update your app’s manifest to declare language and locale support. Depending on the app type, you declare language support in the manifest with different manifest elements. For apps for Office, see Designing an app for Office for specific locales. For apps for SharePoint, see Explore the app manifest and the package of an app for SharePoint.
Note: The maximum number of allowable locales that can be declared for apps in the Office Store is 25.
2. Add localized app metadata in Seller Dashboard to provide a language-specific Store experience. When submitting your app in the Seller Dashboard, you can select 1–5 languages that your app will be listed in. Learn how to add apps in the Microsoft Seller Dashboard.
Note: You can declare more languages in your app's package than are available for submission in the Seller Dashboard.
3. Localize your app functionality. The apps that offer the best customer experience are localized for the language for which they are submitted. To learn more see How to: Build a localized app for Office or How to: Localize apps for SharePoint.
For more information about how to submit an app to the Office Store, see How to: Add apps in the Microsoft Seller Dashboard.
Here are a few important things to keep in mind on the availability of apps in these new markets.
1. All apps that have English as a submission language in the Seller Dashboard:
- Will be published and available, upon validation approval, in the US-based Office Store.
- Will be distributed to all markets as they are opened. You can explicitly indicate markets where you don't want to distribute your app using the Seller Dashboard. For more information, see How to: Add apps in the Microsoft Seller Dashboard.
2. Apps which do not include English as a submitted language in Seller Dashboard can reach validation approval, but will not be available in a store until the additional language-specific store locales open in early summer.
- Krishnan Raghupathi | Program Manager, Office Store Team