Tips

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.

Modern CAT tools are doing their best to make translator’s work easier. For instance, they try to correct errors made by users. Some error types are considered extremely obvious by them and therefore corrected automatically without asking users for the permission to do so.

Driven by the desire to help, however, “cats” tend to do more harm than good adding errors to the text automatically instead of correcting those made by users.

It is sad when the translator makes an error. But it is even more sad if the translator makes no error, and the program inserts it artificially.

Let’s look how the autocorrect function works in Word.

Choose in Word: File > Options > on the left panel of the dialog box Proofing > on the right panel AutoCorrect Options... (the screenshot is taken from Word of Microsoft Office 2013). The following dialog box appears:

Let’s see what these check boxes do:

• Correct TWo INitial CApitals. Seems logical. But if it is on, your GHz (gigahertz) will turn into Ghz etc.
• Capitalize first letter of sentences (or segments). Another good thing, but if the phrase is no separate sentence (for instance, being a list component) or  one sentence is split into several segments in the “cat”, the letters which are to be lowercase will appear as uppercase.
• Capitalize first letter of table cells. This is needed far too seldom; table elements are often written with the help of lowercase letters on purpose.
• Capitalize names of days. Indeed, in English names of days are always capitalized. Nevertheless, when you work with Ukrainian or Russian, this check box is useless.
• Correct accidental usage of cAPS LOCK key. There are lots of proper names which start with a lowercase letter on purpose.
• Correct keyboard layout. A dangerous function since it’s hard to notice when you’re typing a text in the wrong language. Moreover, it may work incorrectly in systems with three or more languages set.

Being familiar with this nasty side of the autocorrect feature, seasoned translators turn it off immediately after the installation of the program. We recommend that you do the same. Don’t entrust programs with the power of changing your texts automatically.

Many of us use Mozilla Thunderbird for emailing. It is an ancient but powerful free email client. Spelling errors in emails you send look ugly. So you should know how to check spelling in Thunderbird. 

First, you need to perform some preparations in your Thunderbird so it could check spelling. Install glossaries for languages you use. To do this, select Tools > Add-ons:

Add-ons Manager tab opens. You can see the list of installed dictionaries. Add/remove dictionaries you want. Please note that there can be several different dictionaries for a single language; choose the one you want.

Now spelling check becomes possible. To run it in a email you type, select Options > Check spelling... or press CTRL+SHIFT+P or, press well-known and familiar F7 key that is used by default for starting spelling check in the overwhelming majority of programs and applications intended for text processing.

The familiar dialog box appears:

Select the correct language here. Then, you can process the text of your email in a way you do this in Word.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to check spelling in Excel like we do this in Word, with underlining the misspelled words with red (if you know the way, please inform us!). Excel was designed mostly for numbers initially, and hence, spelling is not its strong point.

Nevertheless, spelling check is possible, of course, but with a help of Spelling dialog box. It is the standard way in all Microsoft Office programs.

To run the spelling check in Excel, click Review tab > Spelling, or just press F7. The ordinary Spelling dialog box opens, with standard options: Skip, Skip All, Add to Dictionary, Change, Change All, Cancel.

• If you want to check the content of a particular cell, select the cell and put the text cursor inside it by double clicking it, then run the spelling check.
• If you want to check the content of several cells, select them with SHIFT key, then run the spelling check.
• If you want to check the content of the entire spreadsheet, select a cell on it WITHOUT double clicking it and putting the text cursor inside, then run the spelling check. Please note that all comments, page headers, footers and graphics is checked as well.

Note: Excel doesn’t check spelling in cells that contain formulas.

From the recent posts in this blog, we know how to enable spelling check with Microsoft Word spelling engine in the following programs:

• Word itself (sometimes you have to enable spelling check manually)
• Trados Studio
• memoQ
• Wordfast
• Passolo
• Browsers (Chrome or Firefox)

Now we turn to Xliff Editor. This CAT is a part of Translation Workspace system, and it works with usual “offline” files by connecting to online  resources (translation memory, termbases etc.). The standard file extension of Xliff Editor file is .xlz.

By default, spelling check “on the go” is not enabled in Xliff Editor. To enable and adjust it, please do the following:

In Xliff Editor, select Tools > Spelling Check Configuration...

Spell Check Configuration dialog window opens. There, select the check box Use MS Word Spell Checker check box. Then, choose the language in the Language list. If you want to underline incorrectly written words immediately after they are typed, set the Check Spelling As You Type check box.

After that, restart Xliff Editor. All erroneous words are now underlined with red lines, like in Word.