Tips

A web browser is one of the most frequently used programs. Many people don’t know the difference between a browser and the Internet. Today, the most popular web browsers are Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Explorer (a Windows platform). Together they hold 98% of the market.

The websites and web pages you view with your browser are created by different people for different purposes; sometimes they might have too large text, sometimes the text might appear too small.

The quickest way to customize the font size of a web page in Windows is scrolling the mouse wheel with the CTRL key pressed: 

• CTRL + wheel scrolling up—increase
• CTRL + wheel scrolling down—decrease

Unfortunately, these commands won’t apply if you use a laptop because it is equipped with a touchpad instead of a mouse. In this case, the commands below can be used:

• CTRL + PLUS—increase
• CTRL + MINUS—decrease

The plus and minus can be pressed on both main keyboard and numeric keypad.

All these commands are equally applicable in all the browsers. Web browsers usually remember the scale you used for a certain website and show it accordingly the next time you visit this website automatically.

Save your vision!

In the previous post, we learned to convert straight quotes into guillemets in Trados Studio at one blow. In this post, we’ll learn to perform the equivalent operation in memoQ. This is how it’s done.

Call the replace dialog box. Press CTRL+H and the Quick find and replace box will appear:

(The screenshots are taken in memoQ 8.7, they are similar in other versions.)

We need to access additional parameters; therefore, select Change these to unfold the dialog box (its name will change to Advanced Find And Replace):

Uncheck Source text (we need to perform the replacement in the translated text only) and click the button to toggle between plain-text and regular-expression search—the one with angle brackets to the right from the Find what field. The dialog box will transform again:

After that, enter "(.+?)" in the Find what field and «$1» in the Replace with field.

Precautions associated with the similar operation in Trados Studio are also valid here; this method fails in the following cases:

• When the text contains a mistake, and either opening or closing quote is missing.
• When the fragment is big, and the opening and closing quotes of the pair are found in different segments.
• When at least one quote is used as a symbol for inch.

However, during this replacement, unlike Trados Studio, the tags between the straight quotation marks remain; i.e., memoQ cares about them more than Trados Studio. Even though we don’t recommend selecting Replace all: it’s better to look through each case thoroughly in your interest.

From time to time, there is a problem: in the long text, you have to change all straight quotes ("") to chevrons, aka guillemets («»). It’s difficult to do with the help of Find and Replace feature: opening and closing straight quotation marks are the same symbol, whereas opening and closing chevrons are different symbols.

It’s difficult to determine whether a straight quote must be turned into an opening or closing chevron. Supposedly, this might be indicated with the help of spaces: the “space + straight quote” combination is to be replaced with the “space + opening chevron” option, and the “straight quote + space” structure must be converted into “closing chevron + space.” However, if you try to perform such a replacement, very soon you’ll find that this rule has so many exceptions that it is easier to change straight quotation marks to chevrons manually.

Nevertheless, there is a quick semi-automatic replacement method. It is based on the use of paired quotation marks: if the text contains one opening quote, there must also be the closing quote of this pair.

For fishing out paired straight quotation marks, we are going to use regular expressions. In Trados Studio, press the CTRL+H combination and customize the displayed Find and Replace dialog box as shown:

Enter "(.+?)" in the Find what field, put «$1» in the Replace with field, and don’t forget to select the Regular expressions check box in the lower part of the window.

Press Find Next, and Trados Studio will find the closest fragment enclosed in straight quotes. Press Replace to turn the quotes into chevrons (with the text inside remaining); after that, the next fragment will appear.

Of course, there are some exceptions. In certain cases, this request misses the mark:

• When the text inside the quotes contains tags (after the replacement, the text remains, but the tags are gone).
• When the text contains a mistake, and either opening or closing quote is missing.
• When the fragment is big, and the opening and closing quotes of the pair are found in different segments.
• When at least one quote is used as a symbol for inch.

Therefore, one can’t simply place their faith in the Replace All key. Go through all cases pressing Replace and ensuring correct replacement. This is faster than changing quotes manually anyway.

As we already know, sometimes Trados Studio misleads users by hiding tags and provoking mistakes branded as a tag mismatch. Trados Studio is not to blame here: the task of the program is to provide translators with opportunities, and translators must decide for themselves how to use these opportunities.

Trados Studio allows for fast formatting of tag display in the text with the help of the CTRL+ALT+D keyboard shortcut. Continuous pressing changes tag display modes in the order as follows: No Tag Text > Partial Tag Text > Full Tag Text > Tag Id.

Let’s have a closer look at these modes.

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No Tag Text (tag text is not displayed). This mode is helpful to learn about the presence of tags ignoring information of what these tags are. The visual tag representation in this mode is a small triangle:

Press CTRL+ALT+D to switch to Partial Tag Text (tag text is displayed partially). This mode is helpful to learn about the type of each tag without crowding the whole text with them. Tags will look like this:

Press CTRL+ALT+D once more to switch to the Full Tag Text mode (tag text is fully displayed). This mode is helpful to see the whole text of all tags. It’s not comfortable to work in this mode because tags take too much space. Thus generally, this mode is used for the time being: switched it on—had a look—switched it off. In this mode, tags are fully unfolded (sometimes they can take several lines):

Press CTRL+ALT+D once more to switch to the Tag Id mode (tags are numbered). It is helpful in case of numerous tags in the text or if they change places while translation, and one has to make sure each tag is in its place. Visually tags turn into rectangles with numbers. Please note that tag pairs become directed and feature the same number:

Two things:

1. Tag display switch works only when tag display is on, i.e., when the Toggle formatting display switch is turned on:

If this switch is off, tags will be hidden permanently regardless of the display mode.

2. It is very convenient to switch tag display modes on the fly, but there is one inconvenience: you can accidentally miss the target and press CTRL+ALT+F instead of CTRL+ALT+D. This key combination confirms the current segment and moves the cursor to the nearest segment that isn’t included in the translation memory.

If you have installed Trados Studio or had it installed, it’s worth changing several default settings immediately before you start working.

• Turn off automatic update when running Trados Studio

Basically, it’s worth working with the latest version of Trados Studio. By every update, developers get rid of errors and improve security. And if you want the application on your PC to receive latest updates constantly, you’d better leave the automatic update on.

However, if you don’t fancy paying for updates, if you’re okay with the current version of the application, or if you don’t want to bother yourself with installing updates, turn off the automatic update.

How to do it: go to File > Options > on the left panel Automatic Updates > on the right panel uncheck Automatically check for updates when the application starts:

And press ОК.

• Turn on spelling check

There is no point in explaining why it must be done: in the modern world, spelling mistakes in translation are atavisms. And we discussed how to do it here.

• Set display scale

Why it is important and how to do it we discussed here.

• Turn off automatic error correction

Why it must be done we discussed here, and how it can be done—here.

• Configure correct tag display

It was discussed in this post.

• Turn on hidden text (desirably)

What hidden text looks like is described here, and how to display it—here.

* * *

Now you’re fully equipped for a fight!

Why it is worth turning off automatic error correction and how to do it in Word, we’ve already discussed in our previous post. Now we will show you how to set the same in Trados Studio.

Select File > Options > in the Options dialog box on the left panel choose Editor > choose AutoCorrect > on the right panel specify the language of the TARGET text (here it is Russian) > uncheck the items in the Change how Studio corrects text as you type menu:

If you work with several languages, repeat this procedure for other languages too. And press OK.

After this, Trados Studio won’t be messing up with your translation.