Question not related to Blog entries

Since I get often questions which are not related to the posts per se, I added two pages to this blog so questions outside of the blog entries can be listed and answered:
One page for Crosstank questions under http://72arts.wordpress.com/crosstank-questions/.

Use this page to add questions not related to a blog entry with the comment function.
One Page for CrossTerm questions under http://72arts.wordpress.com/crossterm-questions/.

Use this page to add questions not related to a blog entry with the comment function.

HTH

Uwe

Fixing a corrupt TMX file for importing into Across

On occasion you receive Translation Memories in TMX format, in order to add them to your memory for the translation of a project. However, depending on the source of the TMX file, sometimes you will run into an issue where is states that the TMX file is corrupt and cannot be imported. Following you will find a suggested methodology for fixing a TMX file and importing it into Across.

Proceed as follows:

1. Open Across.

2. Switch to CrossTank Manager and select the import function.

3. Select the TMX file.

In this sample you will see that the file has an issue prohibiting the import.

4. Cancel the action.
Open the TMX file with NotePad++ (Freeware editor) and navigate to the line with the issue. You will see that the issue is a formatting character.

However, just deleting the character will not do the trick because it just gives you a new message with the next one. As you can see there are lots of them in here. Therefore continue as follows:

5. Download the Apsic Workbench under http://www.apsic.com/en/products_xbench.html, and install the software.

6. Open Apsic and select Project > New as shown below.

7. In the dialog shown select Add, then TMX file in the dialog for file selection, and click Next.

8. Add the file in Question and click Next as shown below.

9. In the following dialog click OK, to start the processing as shown below.

10. When the file is loaded, switch to Tools > Export Items.

11. Enter the necessary settings and click OK, as shown below.

12. The new TMX file is created in the location specified.

13. Repeat steps 1, 2 and 3. As you can see below, now you have a valid TMX file.

14. Continue as normal to import the TMX file.

Technical comments

The issue described here applies mainly with translation memories in TMX format created with Trados products. This is due to the fact that certain versions of Trados are TMX compliant and compliant does not mean that it is fully supported. So far this procedure has worked with every TMX file that was received with these type of formatting codes included.

Quick reference for Shortcuts and Icons

Just like other software products, across has a large number of shortcuts and symbols. While the often used ones such as Alt+Insert for example become second nature after a while, there are a number of shortcuts that might not be used very often. However, across has provided two nice little documents outlining all the shortcuts and icons in use:

These are

crossDesk Icons Across Personal Edition
crossDesk Shortcuts Across Personal Edition

and you can find them under http://www.my-across.net/en/documentation-center.aspx in the section CrossDesk – Translators workspace at a Glance of this page.

Translating MadCap Flare Table of Contents files

When you are tasked with translating a flare project, the table of contents file with the extension .fltoc can cause some headaches. Although it is an XML file and you could use the process described in the post for Help and manual under http://72arts.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/prepare-across-for-the-translation-of-help-manual-projects/, it becomes a challenge when having to define the actual XML attributes. While this can be done, you should really know what you are doing, so you do not cause yourself any issues. It is with this in mind that I would like to point out the following:

The procedure described in http://72arts.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/translating-iphone-apps-with-across/ can also be applied to Table of Contents files in MadCap Flare.

Translating iPhone Apps with Across

iPhone apps are in general developed using Xcode or TextWrangler. However, since these are strictly Macintosh applications and not all translators have a Mac at their disposal, following you will find a methodology to translate iPhone application string files with across. Please note that this is only efficient if the string file is large. For small files, such as the one used for this example, the direct translation in a copy of the original is a better approach.

Proceed as follows:

Open the file in NotePad++, which is freeware. Do not use Notepad, because in Notepad, you will see this with the line breaks removed and if you remove the word wrap you have one long line.

With Notepad++, you will see that in this example only line 3 and 6 require translation.

With Notepad++ and the relevant file open, select the lines and copy them into a word document. This will give you the following result.

Highlight the text and select the convert to table option and use the double Quote as separator.

Save the file.

Highlight (in this example) the center column. Copy this column to a new file and save it.

Using the EN15038 workflow, in the preparation stage and select the shaded areas as hidden or locked. I suggest hidden, so they will not be entered into the TM.

Translate the literals and check out the results.

Open the previously saved file with the table and insert the column again. Convert the table back to text.

You will see that after the semicolon you will find 2 quote characters in the translated file. These are easily removed through a search and replace.

Replace “;”" with “; globally and you are done.

Open Notepad++ with the file for the translations to be inserted.

Copy the text from the word document and paste it in the file in Notepad++.

Verify the file and save it.

Here is the result.

And here is the original

That’s it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I would like to wih everyone and their families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

May it bring you everything you ever wanted

Using structure attributes with a different Language GUI

SP1 (Patch F) introduces structure attributes, which contain information on which area of a document a translation comes from. For example, it may be relevant to the translation of a segment whether the segment is a chapter heading, a list element, or a GUI button.

While this is true, there is one minor fact to be taken into consideration. While the 4 attributes are predefined by Across, the name of these attributes depends on origin of the source files. For example, the attribute Header would be Überschrift in German. If Header is assigned to H1 and you have a document originating from a German machine, the style name would be Überschrift and therefore the structur mapping would not yield any results.

To make it work with English and with German, I proceeded as follows.

1. I created the 4 equivalents in English (since I am using the German Mui).
2. I exported the standard settings.
3. I created a new settings template with the name Standards_DE.
4. I imported the settings from the file exported in step 2.
5. I then re-assigned the German attributes to the German file settings template.
6. Then the English values were assigned in the English settings file.

In this manner, depending on where the files are from, I assign the relevant template and I get the most out of it.

Upgrade to Patch F

I finished the upgrade to patch F, and so far, there are some nice improvements. I will post any issues I encounter.

Translating Lectora files

For the translation of Lectora files, the following link provides a nice tutorial from the WHO when going the RTF route. Look especially at the technical section regarding the text in red because that’s where a lot of translators stumble when translating these files.

http://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10training/Translation%20guide.pdf

Inserting part of a TU into the translation window

During the translation of a project you will often come onto TUs with Fuzzy matches as suggestions from CrossTank as shown in the following example.

In this particular example the phrase after the colons is correct and the image and the Link before the colons are not included in the manual text. They are only used in the online help.

Here you have 2 options:

The first option consists in inserting the TU and afterwards edit to remove what is not needed.

However, there is also another option, that is not included in the documentation.

For this proceed as follows:

1. Highlight the desired text in the CrossTank window as shown in the following screenshot.

2. Use the keyboard shortcut to insert the TU.

As you can see in the following screenshot, only the highlighted text is inserted, when using this method.

NOTE

Make sure you use the keyboard shortcut. If you double-click the TU the highlight will go away and the whole TU is inserted.

While some of you might be more comfortable with inserting the whole TU and remove what is not needed, I found the second option to be a good alternative for the translation of help and afterwards manuals, because it reduces the chance of inserting formatting that is used in one but not in the other and which will lead consequently to issues when DTP is being done.

Error when Exporting the project in ARA format

Once a project has been completed, and delivered its time to back up everything. While the export into TMX format is fairly straightforward, when exporting as ARA package you will on occasion encounter the following error message pointing out a so-called unknown error (unbekannter Fehler – I am using the German UI):

How do I fix this?

The solution for this one is actually rather simple, since this error points out that you are out of memory.

Proceed as follows:

1. Click OK.
2. Close Across.
3. Open Across again.
4. Export your project again.

The opening and closing will empty your memory cache and everything works again.