Preparing RTF and MS Word Files with Untranslatable Content for SDL Trados TagEditor & Déjà Vu

Transcription

1 Preparing RTF and MS Word Files with Untranslatable Content for SDL Trados TagEditor & Déjà Vu Categories of jobs with text to skip...1 Multilingual tables...1 Documents using text properties to mark sections...4 Very often we receive texts to translate in which some portion of the text is supposed to be ignored in the translation. Sometimes this is straightforward: a short text with a few sentences highlighted or marked in color, with the rest to be ignored. Sometimes, however, the text is quite large and interspersed with sections to translate and others to skip. Then there are projects like one I once received, which consisted of over seventy pages of MS Word tables with text in four colors and colored text which was not to be translated embedded in the middle of sentences requiring translation. Those can be challenging. This guideline explains briefly how various types of RTF and MS Word files can be prepared so that they can be translated and counted efficiently using the CAT tools Déjà Vu and SDL Trados TagEditor. The basic method for both tools relies on the fact that hidden text can be filtered so that it does not appear in the translatable segments. This an the advantage over earlier methods for Trados which involved setting untranslatable document styles, which can destroy the formatting in a complex document. Categories of jobs with text to skip There are two types of jobs we typically encounter where it is necessary to hide text in order to work efficiently with the aforementioned CAT tools. These are: multilingual tables of text to translate and files in which text properties (color, highlighting, font, style, etc.) indicate which text is to be translated and which is to be excluded. Multilingual tables A typical project of this type which I receive might look something like this: Module German Text English Text A Wählen Sie die gewünschte The client usually wants the translation to be typed in the corresponding column. To prepare this type of text for CAT tool translation, do the following: Step 1 Select the source text cells to be translated: Module German Text English Text A Wählen Sie die gewünschte

2 Step 2 Step 3 Place the cursor in the first target cell (marked yellow in the table above) and paste the text: Module German Text English Text A Wählen Sie die gewünschte Wählen Sie die gewünschte Select the text which is not to be translated and hide it by setting the corresponding font property (menu path: Format Font...): The visible portion of the text should appear as follows: Wählen Sie die gewünschte Non-contiguous sections of text can be selected together conveniently by holding down the control key. 2

3 Step 4 Import the file into the CAT tool. For SDL Trados TagEditor 1. Launch TagEditor. 2. Open the Word or RTF document via the File menu. 3. Click the Save button to create a TTX file. hidden text embedded in a tag translatable text The hidden text will be protected by being embedded in tags (see trhe screenshot above). Only the visible text will be available for translation. For Déjà Vu X 1. Launch DVX and create a project. 2. In the Project Wizard dialog (in the screen for selecting source files, click the Properties button) or the Project Explorer, mark the option Ignore Hidden Text: 3

4 Only the visible text will be imported into the translation window: Combined Workflow (SDL Trados TagEditor + Déjà Vu X) 1. Create the TTX as described above. 2. Pre-segment the TTX using an available Trados Workbench TM (can also be an empty one). 3. Import the TTX into Déjà Vu. It is usually useful to select the Prevent Segmentation option during the import to see the exact Trados segmentation initially. 4. Translate in Déjà Vu, then export the uncleaned TTX file. Documents using text properties to mark sections Customer documents often arrive with addenda or particular sections marked to translate using text color, highlighting or other properties, such as the blue text in the following example: Most frogs have a semi-aquatic lifestyle, but move easily on land by jumping or climbing. They typically lay their eggs in puddles, ponds or lakes, and their larvae, called tadpoles, have gills and develop in water. Im Gegensatz zu den Schwanzlurchen weisen die Froschlurche nur während der Larvenphase im Wasser einen Schwanz auf. Mit der Metamorphose zum Landtier wird dieser zurückgebildet. Adult frogs follow a carnivorous diet, mostly of arthropods, annelids and gastropods. Frogs are most noticeable by their call, which can be widely heard during the night or day, mainly in their mating season. [Text courtesy of Wikipedia] In short documents with just a few marked sections, the procedure described above for the simple tables works well: just select what you don t need to translate and hide it, then follow the steps for whatever CAT procedure you use. However, in longer documents with scattered bits of text to translate, it is easy to overlook something, or the selection of the text itself may be cumbersome. In such cases, it is a good idea to use the find and replace dialog in Microsoft Word to hide or show specific text formats. Here one sometimes has to think a little: if there are 15 colors of text in a document, and only the green text needs to be translated, it is most efficient to hide all the text first, then unhide the green text. The use of the find and replace dialog is shown on the following pages. 4

5 Place the cursor in the Find what field. Click the More button to view additional options. Select the relevant format properties. In our example, we ll use the Font properties. 5

6 Choose the relevant properties for the search. In this case, all text with the Automatic color setting. Click OK. Then place the cursor in the Replace with field and select the change you wish to apply. 6

7 Click OK. The find and replace dialog now looks like this: Click the Replace All button to hide all the text with the Automatic color setting. In the example of our frog text above, only the blue text will remain unhidden. 7

8 A fairly complex example in which all the techniques described above can be applied is seen in the example below, which is excerpted from a document about 70 pages long. The translation of the black text in the second column is to be written in the last column, and all other text is to be left unchanged, including the red text embedded in the black-colored sentences. 5.0 ECM- Funktionen ECM-Funktionen ECM-Funktionalitäten sind technologische Ansätze im Dokumenten- Management, die die Gestaltung digitaler Workflows (4.7 Workflow) unterstützen. Chart bereits geliefert Bild Leistungsumfang eingesetzt, ist das korrekt? Der DocFlowManager (2.2.2 Produktsuite), unsere Lösung für Dokumenten- Management, bietet sämtliche Funktionen an, die für effizientes ECM erforderlich sind. Damit gewährleistet sie reibungslosen Workflow (4.7 Workflow) über den gesamten Lebenszyklus eines aufzubewahrenden Dokuments hinweg. Keywords ECM-Funktionen, Dokumentenmanagement, Workflow, DocFlowManager, Funktionen, Enterprise Content Management, ECM, Aufbewahrung One way to process the document would be as follows: 1. Copy the cells from the second column to the last column. 2. Hide the first three columns 3. Use the find and replace dialog to hide red and purple text. This will only affect the last column, as the text in the second column will already be hidden. The final results in TagEditor and Déjà Vu X are shown on the next page. 8

9 Here s what the Trados TTX file looks like with the protected hidden content (in full tag view): And this is the same file in Déjà Vu X: 9