Tag: regular expressions

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” →

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…” →

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…” →

Regex for Microsoft Word… is there no end?

~ paulfilkin ~ 9 Comments

#01Unfortunately the practice of being asked to translate a Microsoft Word file that contains HTML code doesn’t look as though it will go away any time soon for some translators.  But it’s not the end of the world and it’s often all in the preparation of the Word file before you translate it. Continue reading “Regex for Microsoft Word… is there no end?” →

DOGS and CATS… Regular Expressions Part 4!

~ paulfilkin ~ 36 Comments

DOGS and CATS...When I first started adding articles about how to use regular expressions I thought I’d only write three… but I had an interesting question from one of our resellers, Agenor (actually Agenor always asks me the hardest questions!), about how to use the display filter to find segments that contain one word, but not another.  It was tricky, but once you have it you can use the expression all the time.  I have a collection of such things from when people ask me, so I thought I’d share how this problem was solved and also post a list of some of the useful regular expressions I have saved for  the display filter in Studio 2011.

Continue reading “DOGS and CATS… Regular Expressions Part 4!” →