Description

Translating CAD drawings in Trados Studio: the multifariousCAD File Type user guide

AutoCAD drawings are everywhere in technical translation – machinery manuals, plant documentation, tender packages, certification files – and they have always been awkward.  The text is real, translatable content: numbered notes, title-block entries, part labels, worded dimension callouts.  But it lives inside a format most translation tools cannot open, so it ends up copied into spreadsheets, retyped, handled with regex delimited filetypes (guilty as charged!) or sent back to the client for an export of the translatable text alone.

multifariousCAD File Type for Trados Studio makes the drawing itself the translatable file.  This guide walks through the whole workflow, from installation to verifying the delivered file in Autodesk’s free DWG TrueView, with a close look at every setting along the way.

Studio editor with a drawing open, segments visible on the left with tags, the Drawing preview pane on the right showing the sheet.
CAD Drawing courtesy of ARCAT

What it reads, and what it delivers

The file type reads three formats:

Format	Extension	How it is handled
DXF, ASCII form	.dxf	Read and rewritten in place, byte for byte – only the translated text changes
DXF, binary form	.dxf	Converted to ASCII DXF automatically when the file opens
DWG	.dwg	Converted to ASCII DXF automatically when the file opens

Whatever goes in, the translated file always comes out as an ASCII DXF.  This is the openly documented, plain-text form of the format, and every CAD tool opens it – AutoCAD, the free Autodesk DWG TrueView, and everything in between.  The original file is never modified: a converted DWG stays exactly as it arrived, and the translation is delivered as a new .dxf beside it.

Why not deliver DWG back?  DWG is a closed binary format.  Writing it would mean pushing the whole drawing through a third-party library’s understanding of it, and anything the library did not fully understand – vendor objects, custom entities, the long tail of CAD extensions – would be silently rewritten or lost.  Delivering ASCII DXF is what makes the fidelity promise possible: everything that is not translated text keeps its exact original bytes.

Installation

1. In Trados Studio, open the integrated AppStore (or download the .sdlplugin from the RWS AppStore website and double-click it).

2. Search for multifariousCAD File Type for Trados Studio and install.

3. Restart Studio.

The file type appears under File > Options > File Types as CAD drawings – DXF and DWG, and .dxf and .dwg files are accepted anywhere you add files to a project.

Options > File Types showing “CAD drawings – DXF and DWG” in the list, with the file type information page visible (name, identifier, wildcard, description).

Requirements: Trados Studio 2026 on Windows.  Nothing else – the CAD reading library ships inside the plugin, and no CAD software is needed at any point.

What gets translated – and what does not

A DXF drawing stores each piece of text as one of a few entity types.  Knowing them helps you read what Studio shows you:

• Text (TEXT) – a single line placed on the sheet: a label, a caption, a note beside a part.

• Multiline text (MTEXT) – a paragraph with its own inline formatting: the numbered notes and specification blocks.  Its formatting appears in the editor as tags.

• Attribute values (ATTRIB) – the filled-in fields of a placed block: the title-block entries such as drawing name, designer and date.

• Attribute definitions (ATTDEF) – those fields as designed, each with a default value.  Translating the default covers every placement that leaves the field unfilled.

• Dimension text overrides (DIMENSION) – text a drafter typed over a dimension’s measured value.  Off by default; see the settings section.

Just as important is what is not offered, because it puzzles everyone the first time:

• Bare numbers (950, 439.5) are skipped by default – they are measurements read off the drawing, not prose. Switchable in case the format needs to be addressed.

• Text in blocks that are never placed – some drawings carry template blocks that are defined but never put on the sheet.  Their text appears nowhere in any viewer, so it is skipped by default.  Switchable.

• Captions drawn as line-work.  Some drawings – especially from regional CAD applications – draw title-block captions as strokes rather than text.  They look like text on screen, but there are no characters in the file, only lines.  No translation tool can extract them; if they must be translated, that is a job for the drawing’s author in the CAD tool.

A roller-shades CAD file open in the preview – a fully lettered sheet – beside the editor showing no translatable segments: every caption in this drawing is stroked line-work, not text.
CAD Drawing courtesy of ARCAT

Your first project

1. Create a project (or open a single document) with a .dxf or .dwg file. Both appear in the file dialog.

2. If the file is a DWG or a binary DXF, it is converted on opening – this is automatic and the original is untouched.

3. Open the file in the editor.  The drawing’s text appears as segments, in drawing order.

Reading the segments

Most segments are plain text.  Where the drawing carries formatting, you will see tags:

• Paired tags enclose a formatted stretch – the text between them may show bold, italic, underline or strikethrough, mirroring the drawing.

• Single placeholder tags stand for codes with values: a font change, a line break in a note, a special-symbol escape.

• In a dimension override, a locked tag stands for the measured value – the number the dimension displays.  Keep it, or the measurement disappears from the drawing.

Treat tags as you would in any well-behaved file type: keep them all, keep pairs paired, and position them around your translation as the formatting demands.  The QA checker’s tag verification works as usual.

The drawing preview

Open the Preview pane (View > Preview, or the pane you have docked) and choose the Drawing view. This is not a thumbnail – it is the drawing, rendered inside Studio, and it is wired to the editor in both directions:

• Click any text in the drawing and the editor jumps to its segment.

• Move through segments in the editor and the drawing highlights and pans to the active one – even the smallest title-block entry.

Pan by dragging, zoom with the mouse wheel (it zooms towards the cursor), and use the -, +, Reset buttons at the top right. Reset returns to the framed view of the sheet.

The preview with the active segment’s yellow highlight visible on a piece of text, and the same segment selected in the editor beside it.
CAD Drawing courtesy of ARCAT

A useful tip is to zoom the preview, and it will follow you around as you work through the translatable text.  This is particularly useful for text that is really small on the drawing.  Sometimes it can be almost impossible to find it until you zoom right in.

Two tabs matter:

• Source shows the drawing as it arrived.

• Target draws your translations in place – as you translate and save, the target view shows the translated text laid out in the drawing, fitted into the same title-block cells and note positions as the source.  It is the fastest sanity check there is: switch to Target and read your own translation on the sheet.

Source and Target preview tabs, with translated text visible in the Target tab.  Shows a pseudotranslated file which is a great check to make sure all the translatable text will get picked up, and help to identify where the plugin needs improving, or determine that the text is never going to be available for translation!
CAD Drawing courtesy of ARCAT

Worth knowing:

• Some drawings park detail views far outside the sheet frame.  The preview opens framed on the sheet; those views are still there – pan out to them, or simply activate their segments and the preview pans for you.

• Hatches (area fills) and points are deliberately not drawn – a translation preview needs orientation, not render perfection.  Text metrics are approximated with a browser font, so text fit is close but not identical to CAD. For sign-off rendering, use TrueView (below).

• If the preview ever looks stale after heavy editing, the refresh button (circular arrow) regenerates it.

The settings, in depth

File > Options > File Types > CAD drawings – DXF and DWG. Two things to know first: settings that change segmentation must be set before the project is created, and every section of the page has a built-in callout (“What is a layer…?”, “What counts as a number?”) explaining the concepts – this guide covers the practice.

The full settings page, with one of the callouts expanded.

Extract from

Which entity types are offered.  All on by default except dimension overrides.  Turn a type off to leave that text untouched – for example, ATTDEF defaults off if the client only wants what is visibly printed on this sheet.

Dimension text overrides deserve their own note.  A dimension usually displays its measured value; a drafter can override the text, and those overrides sometimes carry real words – suffixes like “Power” or “Signal” on cable dimensions.  Turn this on when your drawing set has them.  Only overrides containing editable words are offered, and the measured-value placeholder is a locked tag.

Layers

Drawings organise content on named layers, like stacked transparencies – and drawings routinely isolate annotation text on a dedicated layer.  The two lists take one pattern per line, with * and ? wildcards, case-insensitive:

• Only translate text on layers matching – with anything here, everything not matching is left untouched.  The practical way to translate just the annotation layer.

• Never translate text on layers matching – removes layers from the offer; wins over an inclusion.

Recipe: run the file once with no filter, note which layers the unwanted segments sit on (or read the layer list in a CAD viewer), then add the patterns and recreate the project.

Segmentation

Start a new segment at each line break in multiline text – the NOTE blocks on engineering drawings are usually numbered lists, one requirement per line.  With this on, each line is its own segment: it matches how such lists are translated, and it reuses far better from a translation memory.  With it off (the default), a whole note is one segment with the line breaks as locked tags.  Decide before creating the project.

Exclusions

• Skip values that are only numbers – on by default.  A value with any letter or symbol (R76, M72, 1:15, a diameter callout) is kept.

• Skip text in blocks that are not placed in the drawing – on by default; see “what does not get translated” above.

• Exclude values matching these patterns – regular expressions, one per line, for the callout conventions numbers alone will not catch: a diameter like Ø700, a thread like 6-M72. A value is dropped only when its whole editable text matches, so worded callouts (Ø57×3 Power) are kept, and inline tags are never part of the match. The callout on the page has worked examples to copy.

Viewing drawings

Not a setting – a pointer to the verification workflow below.

Saving the target

1. Save the bilingual document first (Ctrl+S).  Studio generates the target from the last-saved state – an asterisk on the editor tab means unsaved edits that will not reach the target.

2. File > Save Target As (or the batch task).  A DWG source proposes a .dxf name – that is the delivery format, stated openly.

3. The result is a complete, valid ASCII DXF: your translations in place, everything else byte-identical to the (converted) source.

Untranslated segments keep their source text in the file – a partly translated drawing is always a valid drawing.

Verifying with DWG TrueView

This is the step that separates “it looks fine in my tool” from “the client can use this file”.  Autodesk DWG TrueView is Autodesk’s free viewer, and it renders with the same engine as AutoCAD: what TrueView shows is what the drawing says.  No CAD licence is needed.

Getting TrueView

Download it free from Autodesk’s website (search for “DWG TrueView download” – it is on Autodesk’s viewers page).  Installation is a standard Windows installer; it is a large download but entirely free, and it opens both DWG and DXF.

The verification pass

1. Open your delivered .dxf in TrueView (File > Open, or drag it in).

2. Zoom Extents to see the whole drawing: type Z, Enter, then E, Enter – or use the Extents button on the ribbon’s Navigation panel.

3. Read your translations on the sheet.  Check in particular:

   • Title block: translated entries sit inside their cells; long entries are compressed to fit, exactly as the source language was.

   • Notes: line breaks fall where they did in the source; formatting (underline, bold stretches) survived.

   • Dimensions: measured values still display – if a dimension shows nothing where a number should be, a measured-value tag was deleted in translation; fix the segment and save the target again.

4. Open the original file in a second TrueView window and compare side by side.  The geometry must be identical – only the text differs.

TrueView showing the translated target – showing most of the drawing incluiding the title-block area with translated entries fitted in their cells.
CAD Drawing courtesy of ARCAT

A note on the two previews: the Studio preview is built for orientation while translating – fast, clickable, linked to segments.  TrueView is built for truth – Autodesk’s own rendering, including everything the translation preview deliberately simplifies (hatches, exact stroke fonts).  Use the first while you work and the second before you deliver.

Workflow recipes

Piloting a new drawing set

Before quoting or translating a new client’s drawings, run one file through end to end with pseudotranslation:

1. Create a throwaway project with the drawing and run Studio’s pseudotranslation batch task.

2. Skim the segments: is everything offered translatable prose?  Are part-number callouts flooding the list (add exclusion patterns), is a whole layer noise (add a layer filter)?

3. Save the target and open it in TrueView.  Pseudotranslated text makes untranslated-but-should-be text and layout issues jump out immediately.

Ten minutes of this tells you more about a drawing set than any amount of inspection.

Translation memory strategy

Turn on line-by-line segmentation for note-heavy drawing sets – the numbered requirements repeat heavily across a manufacturer’s drawings, and line-level segments turn that into leverage.  Title-block entries (designer names, project codes) are often best excluded or locked rather than fed to the TM.

Working without any CAD background

You do not need one.  The settings callouts explain each concept where you meet it; the preview shows you the drawing as you work; TrueView shows you the delivered truth.  The only CAD “rule” that must be respected is already enforced by tags: never delete the measured-value tag in a dimension.

Troubleshooting

The preview shows the drawing but nothing highlights or links.  The project was created with an older version of the file type, or with a plugin version prior to 1.0. Recreate the project – from 1.0 the file conversion is deterministic and links remain stable across sessions.

A dimension in the target shows text but no number.  The measured-value tag was removed in translation.  Restore it (copy source to target and retranslate around the tag), save the target again.

Text visible in TrueView never appeared in Studio.  See “what does not get translated”: most often it is a stroked caption (not extractable), a bare number (switch off the numeric exclusion if you need it), or text in an unplaced block (switchable).

The file will not open at all.  The drawing may be a newer format version than the reading library supports, or damaged.  Try opening it in TrueView – if TrueView cannot open it either, the file itself is the problem.  Otherwise, send a report (below).

Limitations, honestly stated – and an invitation

This file type has been built and verified against a real but limited corpus of engineering drawings, with every delivered file checked in Autodesk’s own rendering engine.  CAD files in the wild are wonderfully varied.  Current known limits:

• MULTILEADER and ACAD_TABLE entities are not yet extracted (none occurred in the development corpus).

• Stroked/exploded text is not extractable by any tool.

• The Studio preview approximates SHX stroke fonts with a browser font; TrueView is the reference rendering.

If you translate these formats, your feedback directly improves the plugin: a drawing that behaves oddly, an entity type you need, a convention the filters miss.  Reports with a sample file are gold… every report makes it more useful for everyone who works with drawings.

The drawing preview and format conversion are powered by ACadSharp (MIT); the translation path itself never rewrites the drawing through a CAD library – fidelity comes from substituting translated text into the original byte stream.