Apptonomy

Screenshot Localization

3 min readLast updated View as MarkdownAgent setup

Your screenshots carry text — headlines and captions rendered directly into the image. Screenshot Localization reads that text off each screenshot, translates it into your target languages, and re-renders a localized copy of the screenshot with the translated text in place. The background, layout, and device frame stay as they were; only the words change.

Before you start

  • You need the editor role on the project, and a plan that includes localization. See Plans and entitlements.
  • Set your Target Languages first. Localization runs into the languages you’ve enabled, translating from your primary language.
  • You need existing screenshots to localize. The feature works on rendered screenshot images, not on a design file.

What gets localized

Apptonomy detects the text on each screenshot and localizes only the significant text — headlines and captions. It deliberately skips device-interface chrome: the status-bar clock, battery percentage, AM/PM, and signal indicators (LTE, 5G, WiFi) are left untouched, so a localized screenshot doesn’t end up with a “translated” clock.

Screenshots with no significant text are passed through unchanged.

How it works

For each screenshot and each target language, Apptonomy:

  1. Reads the text off the image.
  2. Translates the significant text into the target language, respecting your translation voice and target-language hints.
  3. Re-renders the screenshot with the translated text painted back into the same position, preserving the original background, layout, and mockup.
  4. Quality-checks the result — it re-reads the localized image, confirms the expected translated text is present, and measures how far the text moved. Each localized screenshot gets a quality score, and low-confidence results are flagged.

The output is a localized screenshot per target language, stored against your listing revision.

Localization status

Each language’s screenshot localization carries a status:

StatusMeaning
PendingQueued, not started
In progressLocalization running
CompletedAll screenshots localized and passed quality checks
PartialSome screenshots localized cleanly; others were flagged
FailedLocalization could not be completed

Individual screenshots that need a closer look are flagged with a reason — for example, missing text, a text-render problem, significant layout drift, low text-detection confidence, a fallback render, or an RTL layout. Treat Partial as “most of this language is done, but review the flagged screenshots.”

Verify it worked

  • The target language’s status reads Completed (or Partial with a short list of flagged screenshots).
  • Each localized screenshot shows the translated headline in the same position as the source, with the background and device frame intact.
  • Review any flagged or RTL screenshots before publishing.

Troubleshooting

Some screenshots came back flagged

A Partial status means the run finished but some screenshots didn’t meet the quality bar — the text may have shifted, been hard to read back, or fallen back to a simpler render. Review each flagged screenshot and, where needed, fix the source screenshot text or supply a cleaner source image, then localize again.

A screenshot’s text wasn’t translated

Only significant headline and caption text is localized; small text and interface chrome are skipped by design. If a caption you expected to be translated was left alone, it was likely below the size threshold or matched an interface-chrome pattern. Make the caption a first-class headline in the source screenshot.