WF Pro 5 and Trados Studio compatibility
Thread poster: Edward Potter
Edward Potter
Edward Potter  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:55
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Dec 13, 2020

I've been doing postediting with Trados imported packages. The client has been asking for Word file delivery after editing their generated target segments. I did have the source Word file sent outside of the Trados package. This is what I did:
- Commit All to memory in the TXLF generated by the Trados import, after doing the postediting.
- Create a new TXLF with the original source file.
- Translate all in this new TXLF.

The result is that the new TXLF has about 4
... See more
I've been doing postediting with Trados imported packages. The client has been asking for Word file delivery after editing their generated target segments. I did have the source Word file sent outside of the Trados package. This is what I did:
- Commit All to memory in the TXLF generated by the Trados import, after doing the postediting.
- Create a new TXLF with the original source file.
- Translate all in this new TXLF.

The result is that the new TXLF has about 40-50 extra segments (out of about 500), which are all blank. The tags are also different. These extra segments correspond to the imported TXLF but are split up differently. Typically the imported TXLF will have a long segment while the source generated TXLF will split it up into 2 or 3 segments. This makes for extra work.

I just ended up cleaning the source generated TXLF, then copy/pasting the parts from the imported TXLF into the Word file. It is simpler that way.

In any case, I don't see how I'm gaining time from doing all of this.
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John Di Rico
John Di Rico  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 18:55
Member (2006)
French to English
Different segmentation settings Dec 14, 2020

I've had the same problem in the past and it is related to segmentation settings. Have you tried modifying them in Wordfast to match those of SDL Trados?

 
Edward Potter
Edward Potter  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:55
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Matching WF Pro 5 segmentation to Trados Dec 14, 2020

John Di Rico wrote:

I've had the same problem in the past and it is related to segmentation settings. Have you tried modifying them in Wordfast to match those of SDL Trados?


Can you give me a clue on how to go about doing that?

Thanks.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 18:55
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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@Edward Dec 15, 2020

Edward Potter wrote:
John Di Rico wrote:
It is related to segmentation settings. Have you tried modifying them ... ?

Can you give me a clue on how to go about doing that?


I'm no expert, but:

Segmentation settings need to be set globally before a TXLF file is created. In WFP5, go to Preferences (either press F9 or click the nameless Frogger icon on the left), then go to Segmentation on the left (not "Segment" but "Segmentation"), and then fiddle with the settings.

In some CAT tools, segmentation is a setting of translation memory, in others it is a setting of the project, but in WFP5, segmentation is a global setting.

The project's source language determines which set of abbreviations are chosen in the segmentation settings, and note: if your project is e.g. "en-US", and you had customised the abbreviations for "en", then your custom abbreviations won't be applied.

If you press F9 while a project is open, the segmentation settings section will show you which abbreviations have been applied, but you can't change a TXLF file's segmentation after it was created.


[Edited at 2020-12-15 09:01 GMT]


Philippe Locquet
 
Philippe Locquet
Philippe Locquet  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 17:55
English to French
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Seg rules Dec 15, 2020

Edward Potter wrote:

Can you give me a clue on how to go about doing that?

Thanks.


Changing segmentation settings can be interesting. The issue is that moving from CAT to CAT all have different segmentation rules. If you are collaborating between multiple tools, having 1 segmentation rule that applies to all is very difficult. This will give different results when accessing TM as for example SDL uses algorithms to improve segment scoring and fetch other TM entries.

I would test importing and then getting the translated file to check if it looks as it's supposed to in the final docx. Then what you are storing to your TM should be made to obey the segmentation rule that you use the most yourself to ensure you get fuzzies presented to you when you need them.
In complex scenarios sometimes it's easier to edit right in the file. You can always decide to align it later if you're in a hurry. The free aligner on wordfast.net is amazing for this.

Hope this helps a little...


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 18:55
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Philippe and @Edward Dec 15, 2020

Philippe Locquet wrote:
If you are collaborating between multiple tools, having 1 segmentation rule that applies to all is very difficult. This will give different results when accessing TM as for example SDL uses algorithms to improve segment scoring and fetch other TM entries.


If I understand Edward correctly, he uses a WFP5 TM which he populates from a machine-translated SDLXLIFF file. So the ins and outs of SDL TMs isn't relevant for him -- his WFP5 TM simply takes over the segmentation of the SDLXLIFF file. The problem is that WFP5 creates larger segments than those in the SDLXLIFF file.

Edward, is it really that hard to split segments in WFP5 manually, if you discover that there is no match for it in the TM? Click the source text where you want to split, and either press Alt+PageUp or right-click and select "Split" (and if no matches appear, Ctrl+Z immediately after will undo the splittting).

And of course, if these missing splits tend to occur in predictable places, you can also edit the source Word file and add a dummy end-of-segment punctuation manually (or using a recorded macro in Word).

[Edited at 2020-12-15 09:58 GMT]


Philippe Locquet
 
John Di Rico
John Di Rico  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 18:55
Member (2006)
French to English
Under preferences Dec 15, 2020

Edward Potter wrote:

Can you give me a clue on how to go about doing that?

Thanks.


Under NEW project preferences, change your segmentation settings to match those of SDL Trados:
https://www.screencast.com/t/LPDElTIOv0lU

I honestly don't know what the differences are bu you should be able to see some patterns in the files you have been translating, e.g. semi-colon creates a new segment.

Warning: if you change settings under new project preferences, it will only affect newly created projects.

Best,
John


 
Philippe Locquet
Philippe Locquet  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 17:55
English to French
+ ...
simple way Dec 15, 2020

Samuel Murray wrote:
If I understand Edward correctly, he uses a WFP5 TM which he populates from a machine-translated SDLXLIFF file. So the ins and outs of SDL TMs isn't relevant for him -- his WFP5 TM simply takes over the segmentation of the SDLXLIFF file. The problem is that WFP5 creates larger segments than those in the SDLXLIFF file.


You're right Samuel, I skipped that part.

In this case the simplest method by far would be:
1_get the source MS Word file sent to you
2_Load it in Pro 5 and send the txlf untranslated to them
3_They load the txlf and machine-translate it in SDL or the platform they use and send it back to you
4_Update txlf and work on it

This would keep the segmentation rules and would not mean much more work for the LSP. Besides, in my experience, MTs prefer Wordfast segmentation (better results).

Off-course it is possible to improve workflows further, if they give the translator the needed data, they can connect the CAT to the MT and get results live. Or, if they don't want to do this, an LSP could use Wordfast Server and connect it to the MT. From this make "shares" to the MT by giving the translator a URL from Wordfast Server. Then the tranlator uses this URL to connect his CAT and it will appear as a Translation Memory in his CAT. This feature in WFS has been developed for this, the MT can be shared to many translators live using different CAT tools and the translators can't see the actual API the LSP uses for MT. (If that sounds complicated, check my ModernMT in Pro 5 video on my YouTube channel, it's not as hard as it sounds).

In my opinion, when an LSP thinks about using MT, workflows have to be very well put together to make sure they get the best out of their editors.

My bests


 


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WF Pro 5 and Trados Studio compatibility







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