Tag: regex

The ins and outs of AutoSuggest

~ paulfilkin ~ 35 Comments

001The AutoSuggest feature in Studio has been around since the launch of Studio 2009 and based on the questions I see from time to time I think it’s a feature that could use a little explanation on what it’s all about.  In simple terms it’s a mechanism for prompting you as you type with suggested target text that is based on the source text of the document you are translating.  So sometimes it might be a translation of some or all of the text in the source segment, and sometimes it might be providing an easy way to replicate the source text into the target.  This is done by you entering a character via the keyboard and then Studio suggests suitable text that can be applied with a single keystroke.  In terms of productivity this is a great feature and given how many other translation tools have copied this in one form or another I think it’s clear it really works too!

AutoSuggest comes from a number of different sources, some out of the box with every version of the product, and some requiring a specific license.  The ability to create resources for AutoSuggest is also controlled by license for some things, but not for all.  When you purchase Studio, any version at all, you have the ability to use the AutoSuggest resources out of the box from three places: Continue reading “The ins and outs of AutoSuggest” →

Talk to the hand…

~ paulfilkin ~ 3 Comments

001… because the head is listening!

In my last article I wrote about the FIT XXth World Congress in Berlin hosted by the BDÜ, and the idea they had of attempting to elicit questions prior to the event through their Conference Bulletin Board.  This was a really great idea because it gives the tool vendors the opportunity to focus their presentations and workshops on the things users really want to know about.

There can be nothing worse, for an experienced user, than turning up to an hours presentation and listening to the same presentation on how to do the basics with a translation tool that you hear every time you make the effort to improve your knowledge.

So the idea of raising questions from people who wish to attend prior to the event is a really good one because not only does it mean the content should be more relevant to the things users really want to know, but it also gives the vendor time to prepare for any really tricky questions that might otherwise have to be taken off line.  So I thought I’d use this article to do two things.

  1. Shamelessly promote a couple of conferences I’m attending this year where there are opportunities to ask questions
  2. Get some questions!!

Continue reading “Talk to the hand…” →

Why do we need custom XML filetypes?

~ paulfilkin ~ 91 Comments

20_smallerMy son asked me how my day had gone and before I could answer he said in a slightly mocking tone “blah blah blah… XML… blah… XML … blah blah”.  Clearly I spend too much time outside of work talking about work, and clearly his perception of what I do is tainted towards the more technical aspects I like the most!  Aside from the note to self “stop talking about this stuff after I leave the office!” it got me thinking about why I probably think about XML as much as I apparently do and how I could help others avoid the very same compulsion!  I’ve written articles in the past about how to use regular expressions in Studio, and an article on using XPath, and I’ve probably touched on handling XML files from time to time in various articles.  But I don’t think I’ve ever explained how to create an XML filetype in the first place, or why you would want to… after all Studio has default filetypes for XML and this is just another filetype that the CAT tool should be able to handle… right?

Continue reading “Why do we need custom XML filetypes?” →

The 12 QA checks of Christmas…

~ paulfilkin ~ 15 Comments

01On the first day of Christmas my Studio gave to me…
12 Verification SDK and API!
11 QA Checker Profiles
10 Segments to exclude
9 Punctuation checks
8 Regular Expressions
7 Terminology Verification
6 Trademark checks
5 Number checks
4 Segment Verifications
3 Length Verification checks
2 Word Lists
… and no Inconsistencies by default

The Quality Assurance features in Studio are quite extensive, and they are often loved and hated all at the same time.  Loved because when used correctly they can provide excellent assurance that you’ll have happy clients… hated because the automated recognition of numbers, dates etc. in Studio follow the settings of your computer and sometimes these are not what you need.

Continue reading “The 12 QA checks of Christmas…” →

Those dumb smart quotes…

~ paulfilkin ~ 44 Comments

#01Since Studio 2014 was launched it’s been interesting to see what some users were waiting for.  Did they want the Quickmerge, Alignment, AutoSave, improved navigation, blistering speed, automatic concordance search, improved filters, enhanced locking functionality, custom TM user ID, improvements to the term recognition threshold, more options in the display filter, auto-substitution for acronyms and a host of other improvements?  No… and I genuinely don’t mean this in a mean way… it seems for some users an easier way to handle typographical quotes is the order of the day and this hasn’t radically changed since TagEditor.

Continue reading “Those dumb smart quotes…” →

The SDLXLIFF Toolkit

~ paulfilkin ~ 20 Comments

#01The release of Studio 2014 will bring a number of new OpenExchange applications to the App Store.  One of these is already becoming well known based on the name alone… the SDLXLIFF Toolkit!  The name suggests this is a tool for working with an SDLXLIFF and being able to take it to pieces and interact with all of it’s components… and this is probably a good explanation of what it actually does.

Continue reading “The SDLXLIFF Toolkit” →

Handling taggy Excel files in Studio…

~ paulfilkin ~ 98 Comments

#01By taggy files I mean “embedded xml or html content” that is written into an Excel file alongside translatable text.  In the last article I wrote I documented a method sometimes used by people to handle tagged content in a Word file… funnily enough I came across a Word file containing the XML components of an IDML file today and I guess it must have been prepared in a very similar way judging by the enormous number of tags using the tw4win style to hide them when opened by any SDL Trados version!  Proof for me that this practice is sadly alive and well.  But I digress… because this time I want to cover how to handle a similar problem when you find HTML or XML tagged content in an Excel file.  This crops up quite a bit on ProZ so I thought it might be better to document it once and for all so I have something else to refer to in addition to the Studio help.

Continue reading “Handling taggy Excel files in Studio…” →