Translate App Store Screenshots to Chinese (Simplified)

Apple names Chinese by writing system, so the App Store Connect shortcode is zh-Hans for Simplified and zh-Hant for Traditional (Apple: locale shortcodes (opens in a new tab)). Google Play names it by region: zh-CN for Simplified, with zh-TW and zh-HK as separate Traditional listings (Play Console Help (opens in a new tab)).

The practical consequence is a mapping step at upload time. One exported Simplified set goes to zh-Hans on iOS and zh-CN on Android; nothing in it should be reused for the Traditional listings.

Most issues come from treating Han text like Latin text. The W3C Chinese layout requirements (CLREQ (opens in a new tab)) describe the conventions a native reader expects; these are the ones that surface most often in store visuals.

• Half-width punctuation. Chinese uses full-width marks such as ，。：“” and 《》. An ASCII comma or period next to Han characters looks like a copy-paste slip.
• Punctuation position. In mainland typography, pause and stop marks sit in the lower-left of their square in horizontal text, while Taiwan and Hong Kong center them (CLREQ §2.1.2 (opens in a new tab)). A font tuned for Traditional text can place them wrong for a zh-CN audience.
• Forbidden line starts and ends. Closing marks like ，and 。 should not begin a line, and opening quotes or brackets should not end one (CLREQ §6.1.1 (opens in a new tab)). Automatic wrapping in a narrow caption box breaks this rule easily.
• Mixed Han and Latin. In horizontal text, CLREQ describes a gap of up to a quarter of a Han character between Han characters and Western letters or numerals, or a regular word space, applied consistently and never at the start or end of a line (CLREQ §6.3.3 (opens in a new tab)). Pick one approach for product names like "iPhone" and figures like "4K" and use it in every caption.
• No word spaces. Chinese has no spaces between words, so a translator's stray spaces show up as uneven gaps in a headline.

Many characters share a code point across Chinese, Japanese and Korean but are drawn differently in each region's fonts. A Japanese or Traditional-oriented typeface can render familiar Simplified characters with shapes that look slightly off to mainland readers.

The eight caption fonts in the StoreLocale editor (Inter, Poppins and others) are Latin typefaces, so Han characters in caption layers are drawn with a fallback font from the operating system and browser. That fallback can differ between computers, so export every Chinese set from the same machine and review the PNGs; a clean sans-serif (Hei style) look suits short marketing lines.

Often in character count, but not reliably in width. The W3C article on text size in translation (opens in a new tab) counts each Chinese character as two English characters in width and notes that non-Latin scripts often need taller lines. In its single-word example from a Traditional Chinese interface, "views" translates at a ratio of 1.2, slightly longer than English.

Dense characters also lose detail at small sizes. A six-character headline that fits easily can still be hard to read at phone thumbnail size if it is set at the same point size as the English caption, so size Han text up rather than down.

StoreLocale translates detected in-app UI text and caption layers into its zh target, which is Simplified Chinese (简体中文). Traditional Chinese is a separate target, zh-TW (繁體中文), so you can build both sets from the same English project without mixing characters.

Exports are PNG files in a ZIP, with a locale folder named zh. StoreLocale does not upload to either console, so drag that folder's files into the zh-Hans and zh-CN listings yourself. Text detection and translation cost no credits; the AI repaint of each screenshot uses 1, 2 or 4 credits depending on the Standard, Pro or Ultra tier.

The repaint is generative, so treat every Chinese image as a draft for review. Brand names and marks such as 4K, HD or PRO stay untranslated by default, and the compare view puts the English source next to the Chinese result.

1. Every character is Simplified. Search for Traditional forms of very common characters (such as those for "this", "say" and "will", or the plural marker) that slipped in from mixed sources.
2. Punctuation is full-width and sits in the lower-left of its square, and no line starts with ，。！？ or a closing quote.
3. Product names, prices and numbers keep their Latin form with a narrow, consistent gap next to Han text.
4. Glyphs look mainland-standard, with no Japanese-style or Traditional-style shapes from a fallback font.
5. Headlines read naturally to a mainland user rather than as a word-for-word rendering of the English.
6. Repainted UI text matches the original font weight and color, and nothing outside the text regions changed.