If you changed Magic Set Editor’s language and your cards still come out in English — or the menus changed but nothing else did — you have found the thing that confuses almost everyone: MSE has two separate language settings, one for the program’s interface and one for the language of the cards in a set. Changing one does not change the other. The community’s Full-Magic-Pack documentation describes both steps, and they take under a minute once you know they are separate.
Step 1: The interface language (welcome window)
When Magic Set Editor starts, its welcome window has a language control in the bottom-right corner. That setting controls the language of the program itself — menus, dialogs and labels. Pick your language there and the interface follows. It says nothing about the cards: a Spanish interface will still happily edit a set whose cards are in English.
Step 2: The card language (Set info)
The language printed on the cards is a property of the set, set in the set’s Set info when you create or edit a set. This is the setting that matters for the finished cards — keyword presentation and card text language belong to the set, not to the program’s menus. If your interface is already in your language but new cards are not, this is the setting you missed.
Which languages are available?
According to MTG Wiki’s record of the program, completed translations of MSE exist for: Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, French, Danish, Polish, and Chinese in both Traditional and Simplified forms. That list describes completed translations of the program; the exact options in front of you can depend on the build and template pack you installed, so treat the menus in your own copy as the final word. Given how much of MSE’s audience works in Spanish and Italian in particular, the two-step setup above is usually all that stands between them and cards in their own language.
Common confusions, cleared up
- "I changed the language and the menus stayed English." You most likely changed the set’s card language (Step 2), which never touches the menus. Change the welcome-window setting as well.
- "The menus changed but my cards are still English." The reverse: the interface setting does not restyle an existing set. Set the card language in Set info.
- "Do I need a separate download per language?" No separate program per language is documented — language selection lives inside the program and the set, as described above. What you do need is the templates installed, since a set cannot be created without them.
If you are setting MSE up from scratch in another language, do the two steps as part of installation: interface language at the welcome window on first launch, card language in Set info when you create your first set. Our installation guide covers the setup that comes before this, including adding the template pack a new set needs.