In this article, we will explain to you how to use the global widget – how to make changes to its content and how to translate it.

Alert

Editing the content of the global widget, in the following manner, should ALWAYS be done solely for the default language (mostly English), in Elementor. After doing so, you can update the translated pages through the WPML-plugin.


1. What is a Global Widget?


A Global Widget gives you full control over a specific widget/element that is displayed in multiple places on your site. Editing it in one place will instantly update the rest.

It looks the same as any other template in your website would look. There is only one difference to easily notice – a global widget is surrounded by a yellow border instead of the standard blue border in Elementor.



2. How to Insert a Global Widget in a Page

  1. Open the specific page (in its default language) in Elementor, in which you would like insert the global widget.
  2. You can insert a global widget in a page, in the same manner as you would insert any template. The global widget is only saved under the name: “#Pillows-Global-Template – ….”
  3. Go to the bottom of the page and press the ‘folder-icon’ to insert a template:
  4.  Navigate to ‘My Templates’ on top, find the global widget you would like to insert (in this case: #Pillows-Global-Template – Three Images Row Incl. Textlinks) and press ‘Insert’ behind the title: 
  5. Now you will see the global widget on the page. Do not forget to save your changes, by pressing ‘Update’ on the bottom of the left menu.
    Alert

    Keep in mind that this is a global widget and therefore used in multiple places on your website. Any changes you make now to the widget, after inserting it in the page, will be applied to all places it is inserted in your website.


3. How to Edit a Global Widget

  1. Access the back-end of your website, and navigate to Templates > Saved Templates (in the black menu on the left side):
  2.  In this page you will find an overview of all templates saved for your website. Navigate to the bar on the right top and search for ‘global’: 
    In this way, you make sure that only global widgets are displayed, as the template will have ‘global’ mentioned in its name.
    Alert

    In this list, you will see all global widgets and it components saved separately. To edit the content of the global widget, find the template that has ‘Global-Template’ in its name + the full element name. The components of this global widget – headers, images, paragraphs, links etc. – will solely have ‘Global’ in the name and are saved separately.


4. Edit the Global Widget

  1. Navigate to the templates overview (like explained in the steps above) and go to “#Pillows-Global-Template – Three Images in a Row incl. Textlinks”. Press ‘Edit with Elementor’ underneath the name (appears when you hover over it). The template will open in Elementor.
  2. In Elementor, you can now edit the titles, text, links and/or images. Press ‘Update’ on the bottom of the left menu, to save your changes.

Now you have updated the global widget, but only in the default language. To update the translations, you will have to go through the WPML-plugin – explained in the next step.

Alert

When you have only updated the image(s) in the widget, you will nót have to go through the WPML-plugin (like explained in the next steps). The images will be updated automatically, for all languages.


5. Translations of the Global Widget

Go back to the back-end and follow step 1 and 2 again (navigate to Templates > Saved Templates. Search for ‘global’ in the search bar in the top right).


Now, you will have to update the translations of all components of the global widget (see the image in chapter 2 of what the components’ titles look like). You can do this, by pressing the icon behind the title of the widget.

This is the same as you would do when translating a page. You can read more about how to do that, in this article: WPML – Translation & Language Management. It could be that there is no translation for the component yet. Then simply create one, by pressing the plus-icon.


  1. Go through the fields of the WPML-plugin to save the updates for the translation. Make sure to save your changes on the bottom of the page, where the progress bar should showcase the 100%.
  2. Follow these steps for àll the components of the global widget. In this case, for the global widget used as an example in this article (shown on top of this page, with the three images in a row), there are 9 components: three titles, three paragraphs and three textlinks.
  3. Important – Go through the translation-tool (WPML-plugin) for all nine components and make sure to save your changes. Only in that way, the updates will be visible in all languages.