Tips

• Microsoft decided it is high time to change their default font. In ancient times, it was Times New Roman, since 2007—Calibri, now there are five new fonts at once, and Microsoft is pondering which to prefer.
• Google Lens will soon get a new useful feature, automated translation of the text on screen captures. Users will be able to translate it instantly or send it to the pre-installed Google Translate.
• Starting from Android 12, it will be possible to automatically localize applications for Android. This should come in handy for small companies and indie developers. Nothing is said about the quality of such translation.

* * *

And about cats.

• XTM has improved video operations: XTM Cloud 12.7 now features a preview of video subtitles. They can be translated in real-time; to do this, you need to provide the link to a video on Youtube or Vimeo and assign a subtitle file to it. The new version is much more user-friendly: you don’t have to switch between video and text all the time, there is no need for rewinding the video to find the right fragment, you can instantly see whether the text fits the allocated space, etc. Currently, it is a beta function; it will become standard in XTM Cloud 13.0.

Another piece of news: XTM Mobile 2.3 has been released.

• A post about translating subtitles on the Smartcat website. They speak of Smartcat in the second part of the article, and the first part is dedicated to several third-party applications. This is what it looks like.

Smartcat has also introduced a preview for Microsoft Word documents, here they show how it works.

• Multiple updates in CrowdIn. There are so many that they deserve a separate post. Here are some of them:
• CrowdIn + Intercom integration has been realized to facilitate help text localization.
• Issue Notification Manager now enables sending scheduled notifications.
• The auto-approve option for editors has been added.
• ModernMT support has been added.
• Java Play Properties and Java Properties XML files can now be edited.

When your translation performed in Word with Trados (to be exact, Translator's Workbench) is finished, you create a translated file that contains the translation. I. e., you eliminate the source text and leave the translated text (target) only. This operation is called “cleaning”, as you “clean” your file from source, leaving the target only.

Usually, you do it using the Translator's Workbench: you select Tools > Clean Up, then you choose the Word files, press Clean Up. Translator's Workbench deletes the source text and so you get the translated files.

But sometimes something goes wrong and Translator's Workbench fails to clean the files. This usually happens if there are problems with segmentation in the file you are cleaning. Or, you try to clean the files of Word 2007 and higher (.docx files). Or, you need to clean the file from source on a PC where Trados is not installed at all. Then, the following trick helps.

1. Usually, you see only visible text in Word, like this:

You see the translated text only, while the source text is present in the file as well, but it is hidden. To see the source text, you need to make hidden Word text visible: press  button on the Word ribbon or press CTRL+SHIFT+8 (just 8, not F8). You will see something like this:

2. To get rid of the source text is in fact to get rid of the hidden text. This can be done right in Word, without Trados. To do this, press CTRL+H to open Search and Replace dialog window, then press More, then press Format button > Font > Hidden:

Then, press OK and Replace All.

This command deletes all hidden text from a Word file, leaving only visible one — i. e., only your translation.

A month ago we talked about hidden characters in Word. Since it is useful to see them when working on texts, it makes sense to know how to toggle them in the mainstream CAT tools. 

Trados Studio

When in Editor mode, select Home tab on the ribbon and press this button:

There is no special shortcut for enabling/disabling hidden characters, but you can set it yourself in the Trados Studio settings. 

memoQ

In memoQ, showing hidden characters is somewhat trickier:

Select memoQ (on the ribbon) > Options > Options. Options dialog box appears. On the left pane, select Appearance. Then, select Show non-printing characters on the right:

Xliff Editor

In Xliff Editor, there is a toggle similar to the one in Word and Trados Studio:

TagEditor

The same in TagEditor (from Trados 2007 bundle):

Transit NXT

In Transit NXT, select View tab on the ribbon, then set the checkbox Special characters:

Wordfast Pro

The toggle enabling hidden characters in Wordfast is similar to the one in TagEditor, Word and Xliff Editor:

Memsource

The same button is used in the Memsource Editor:

All commands mentioned below are accessible from the dialog window that appears after right-clicking a file on the Project home tab in memoQ interface.

• How to create .mqxlz file:
  - Right-click the memoQ file > Export > Export Bilingual > memoQ XLIFF
• How to convert memoQ file into Trados-compatible format (as if it was translated in Word with Trados 2007):
  - Right-click the memoQ file > Export > Export Bilingual > Trados-compatible bilingual DOC
• How to create .mqback file in memoQ:
  - Right-click the memoQ file > Deliver/Return
• How to create clean file in memoQ:
  - Right-click the memoQ file > Export > Export (Dialog)

In some Word files you can encounter abracadabra like this:

As you can see, codes are somehow shown instead of hyperlinks. That is because a semi-secret checkbox was, intendedly or unintendedly, selected in your Word. It is semi-secret because few users know even about its existence, to say nothing of where it could be found in the bowels of Word.

Here is where you can find it:

File > Options > Word Options > Advanced:

If you deselect this checkbox, values (i. e., actual text) instead of formulas are shown in all fields:

BTW, a paragraph from our recent article is used in the screenshot.

If you use WordFast Pro 5.6 or another version older than Wordfast Pro 5.12 and try opening TXLF files generated in the new version, you may get the following error message:

Attribute ‘gs4tr:uuid’ is not allowed to appear in element ‘file’

It takes place because earlier WF versions can’t recognize this attribute. To solve this problem, you can download and install a new 5.12 version. But there is another bypass solution.

Open the TXLF file in the text editor Notepad++, use the search function (CTRL+F) to find “gs4tr:uuid,” and delete the attribute together with its number and the redundant space as shown in the screenshot. Click the Save button and close the file tab.

After this, the file opens in WordFast 5.6, and no error messages appear.