Working with Packages

~ Paul Filkin ~ 85 Comments

A “Package”, sometimes referred to as a “Kit”, is the name given to a file produced by some Translation Tools that comprises of some or all of the following:

  • Bilingual files for translation (SDLXLIFF, XLIFF, ITD, TTX for example)
  • Any files as reference material (source files as PDF documents, image files, native versions of the source files, reference material etc.)
  • Translation Memories (SDLTM, TMX for example)
  • Termbases (SDLTB, TBX for example)
  • AutoSuggest Dictionaries
  • Analysis information and wordcounts
  • Project metadata (due date, QA settings, filetype settings, custom quick inserts, etc.)

Continue reading “Working with Packages” →

Identifying numbers in your analysis

~ Paul Filkin ~ Leave a comment

Handling number only segments is a question that comes up a fair bit, and for a number of reasons.  Mostly it’s the more simple question of how to handle them at all; sometimes they are recognised and Studio can auto-localize them; sometimes they aren’t recognised and you need to work around this a little.  This question I’ve addressed a few times, so here’s a few links as a reminder.

Continue reading “Identifying numbers in your analysis” →

Working with placeables that are not automatically recognised

~ Paul Filkin ~ Leave a comment

#01A few articles ago I spent time explaining how to use the TermInjector OpenExchange application from Tommi Nieminen which allows you to create dynamic variables based on regular expressions.
It is a pretty complex article and I had to reread it a couple of times to get my head around it again, and I needed expert help from Tommi, but it was worth the effort because this tool could prove to be invaluable for users who regularly have to deal with numbers in a document that are not recognised by Studio, or currencies that are not used in a way that Studio can automatically localize them for you.
Continue reading “Working with placeables that are not automatically recognised” →

Aliens and widgets…

~ Paul Filkin ~ Leave a comment

Widget, the World Watcher is a purple alien who came down to earth to teach children about the problems caused by pollution and the importance of protecting our planet for future generations. Of course he also battled with evil villains and could shape-shift into various forms that allowed him to do battle and prevent the earths valuable resources from being stolen.
Continue reading “Aliens and widgets…” →

"Please translate this short paragraph and return by email"

~ Paul Filkin ~ 20 Comments

These “quick” jobs are never that quick if you want to make sure you add the translation to your Translation Memory, or leverage the work you’ve done before.  You need to copy the text into a word document, or similar, then open the document in your favourite translation environment, translate the document, save the target translation, open the document and copy the text, finally paste it back into your email to return to your client.
Continue reading “"Please translate this short paragraph and return by email"” →

So how many words do you think it is?

~ Paul Filkin ~ 40 Comments

Last Update 14 Feb 2015: Analysis based on SDL Trados Studio 2014 SP2 CU8 (11.2.4364.8)
It’s not unusual for people to see the word-count in a translation tool, compare it to the word-count in their authoring tool (usually MSWord..!) and then wonder why there are so many differences.  Quite often I get sent documents and am asked to explain the differences which I often put down to a simple explanation; ultimately I think you need to be fair with this and Word is a simple word count, whereas a translation tool is designed to try and reflect the effort of the Translator.  Studio even separates out the placeables and numbers so that the real effort becomes apparent and a fair way of measuring and charging for the work is achieved.  How successful this is often depends on who’s asking and exactly what the source material is..!
Continue reading “So how many words do you think it is?” →

The ATA53 Studio presentation in San Diego…

~ Paul Filkin ~ Leave a comment


As a follow on to the presentation I gave at the ATA this year, which was very well attended (photo courtesy of Wesley Budd) I thought it might be useful if I highlighted some of the things covered on the day.
The session itself was a little ad-hoc, deliberately so, because I wanted to make sure the content was relevant to the attendees, and because it wasn’t a getting started session.  So I covered quite a lot of material, that judging by the number of people furiously scribbling down in their notebooks could use a little follow up!
Continue reading “The ATA53 Studio presentation in San Diego…” →

More useful resources… and multilingual TMs

~ Paul Filkin ~ Leave a comment

In October 2012 the European Union (EU) agency ‘European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’ (ECDC) released a translation memory into the public domain containing 25 languages… the 23 official European languages plus Icelandic and Norwegian.  This comes in a similar format to the DGT Multilingual Translation Memory of the Acquis Communautaire that I described here in this article but this time it’s much smaller… so we can look at how to handle a single TMX file that contains all of these languages in one file using Studio.
Continue reading “More useful resources… and multilingual TMs” →

Working with Variable Lists

~ Paul Filkin ~ 12 Comments

Updated January 2015 : Also possible, and easier, to use the Variable Manager from the SDL OpenExchange (now RWS AppStore) for this.
I mentioned in a previous post that it wasn’t possible to import long variable lists into a Studio Translation Memory using the desktop version of Studio. You can do this with GroupShare, but the ability to do this in the desktop version is a work in progress.
Well that wasn’t quite true and as I’ve been preparing for some roadshows and events that are coming up this month I figured out a simple workaround using SDL Trados 2007 Suite.
Continue reading “Working with Variable Lists” →