Tips

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.

If you do not have or do not like or do not work in Wordfast, you can translate its files in Trados Studio.

Trados Studio knows well how to process different file types (Word, Excel, HTML and many, many others). To teach your Trados Studio to work with TXLF Wordfast files means to explain it what those files actually are.

A TXLF file is actually a standard XLIFF file with changed extension. So it is enough to add a file mask to the other existing XLIFF files in Trados Studio settings.

To do this, select File > Options:

Options dialog window opens:

Select File Types:

Scroll to the XLIFF item and click it:

On the right pane, all possible XLIFF files extensions are listed. What you need to do is to add a mask for TXLF—;*.txlf:

Then, click OK. That's it: now your Trados Studio is able to work with TXLF Wordfast files.

To receive the translated TXLF files after translation, just perform a regular clean procedure.

A Wordfast TM file has .txt extension. Actually, it is an usual .txt file delimited with tabs in a special way. Converting it into TMX format that allows TM exchange between all other CAT tools can be done in several ways. The easiest and quickest way involves Xbench (either free or paid version).

Step 1: Load your Wordfast TM into Xbench. There is a special file type Wordfast Memory there:

Do not forget to set the checkbox Ongoing translation.

Step 2: In Xbench, select Tools > Export Items, or simply press CTRL + R.

Export Items dialog box appears. Specify the settings in Output section: what languages are considered to be source and target, and the path and the file name for the .tmx file of the TM.

Press OK button. The .tmx file you get is the converted Wordfast TM.

Recently, we discussed how to check spelling in Word and in memoQ. This post is devoted to Wordfast.

In Wordfast, please select Edit > Preferences. In the dialog window that appears please click Spelling on the left pane:

The screenshot is made in somewhat obsolete version 2.3.0, but the way of configuring spelling check is similar in the subsequent versions.

On the right pane, select Microsoft Office Spellcheck, then press OK. After that, Wordfast will check spelling with Microsoft Word engine.

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:

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.