Tags
Autopropagation, CAT tools, Cross-referencing, File management, Multiple files, Software, Studio 2017, Technology, Trados, Translation, Translation memory
Following on from the enthusiastic reception of my last Trados-related post about the Advanced Display Filter, I thought I’d take the time to write about another neat feature that I only discovered relatively late in my Trados career: the ability to work on multiple files. Once again, advanced users will have to fast-forward at this juncture, but in my experience it is often the simplest tips that can be most useful, especially if you’re relatively new to CAT tools.
You might wonder, as I did initially, why you would want to work on several files at once. Surely the point of a CAT tool is that it will apply any matches from the translation memory anyway, whether or not you have all the files open. Well, yes, of course it does. But if you’re working on a batch of related files, it can be extremely useful to be able to cross-reference across those files as you work. Say you come across an unknown term, especially an abbreviation, that bane of all translators’ lives, and can’t find it in your termbases or online searches, for example. By using the advanced display filter and with all the related files in the project open, you can ask Trados to show you just the segments containing that term. The term may be explained in more detail in another document, or there may be even be a glossary (you never know your luck!). Without having all the files open in Trados, you’d have to open each source file in turn and laboriously find the term in each one. Convinced yet?
There’s also the fact that matches will autopropagate as you work – assuming you’ve got the appropriate settings set up under File > Options > Auto Propagate: you should have ‘Autopropagate exact matches to confirmed segments’ checked. When working on multiple files, you can be sure that the latest version you’ve typed will be reproduced across all open files. This is especially important at the revision stage, where it’s very easy to miss the fact that a different version of a repeated segment has been used in another similar file as it won’t automatically propagate. It will alert you to the fact that there is a different version in the TM in the translation results window, but if you don’t happen to check, you could easily miss it. Better to be safe than sorry…
Under File > Options > Auto Propagate, you also have the option to select the starting position for Autopropagation. I have this set to ‘Next segment in document’, but you can also ask it to propagate from the ‘First segment in the document’, in which case it will retrospectively change segments you may already have checked. I find this a dangerous strategy as sometimes there are two (or more) correct ways of translating a segment, especially single-word segments, and you want to have the final say in each given context, not Trados. By only propagating forwards, you will always be able to check what’s changed as you work.
I find that the format of numbers and letters sometimes changes back once you’ve confirmed them, so autopropagation can be a double-edged sword in such cases. My source languages often have a space between the number and the % sign or °C. When I change it in one segment, I find that Trados often reverts all instances other than the exact same number to the source format because of the way it processes numbers. If you propagate from the start of the document, this can inadvertently undo all your good work – just a word of warning for any document, let alone multiple files!
One of my clients has a habit of responding to term queries very late in the process, so I may well have completed my draft versions of a number of files before the answers eventually arrive. Again, by opening multiple files , I can find all instances of the queried terms across all files and change them quickly and consistently – ingenious.
So how do you open multiple files? Simple! Having created your project, to which you’ve added two or more related files, double-click on the project name in your list. You should then see a list of the files in your project. At this point you’d normally double-click on the file you want to work on, or highlight the file and click on ‘Open for translation’ at the top (or by right-clicking). To open multiple files, just press and hold the Control key and click on the files you want to open until they are all highlighted and then click Open for Translation.
Lo and behold, the files will now open in the Editor in one long list, with each file separated by a small orange bar at the beginning and end of each one telling you which file you’re working on. When you come to save them, each file is still saved as the individual file: this is purely a way of having an overview of all the files as you work. You can still open the individual files at any time if you wish.
You can also decide which order you want to work on the files, something I only discovered in a recent project! Instead of being bound by the order of the files in the Trados list, the files are added in the order you click on them, so if you want to return certain urgent files first, or work through them in size order, or interest order for that matter, you have that power!
I hope I’ve convinced you – good luck!
Isn’t it funny that there are functions in Trados that we don’t necessarily notice? I remember spotting this particular one a while back and being extremely chuffed. I *love* the fact that you can have umpteen untranslated files when you begin a project but that you can reduce the figures for each file simply by translating the repetitions.
Because, of course, you can combine translating multiple files with the advanced filters you described in your last post! This is great for giving you a morale boost at the start of a major project by quickly reducing the amount still to be translated… but it does have the disadvantage of making the rest of the project go relatively more slowly.
And yes, you’re quite right that things like numbers and percentages can be fiddly. My solution is to lock them as soon as they’re translated how I want, and then they don’t keep changing back again. I’ve never understood the logic in how these changes take place – presumably there must be some point to this, or is it just a problem with Autopropagate?
Hello again Jane,
I asked Paul Filkin about the measurement unit autopropagation issue and he pointed me to the Autosubstitution settings for each language pair (Select Files > Options >Language Pairs > [Source Language Name – Target Language Name ] > Translation Memory and Automated Translation > Auto-substitution > Measurements from the navigation tree. The Auto-substitution settings are displayed in the right pane.) Here you can opt to “Use the same spacing between the number and the unit used in the translation memory target segment” – which should hopefully cure the problem! I certainly had no idea you could do this, so this should save a lot of faffing around – huge thanks to Paul as ever. Apparently the default is to use the source segment spacing…
Ooh, that’s handy! If only we could clone Paul Filkin in a convenient pocket sized format – or maybe make him an app. Then I could just rant about the daft things that Trados does and littlePaulFilkin would calmly say “but Jane, did you not realise you can change the Autosubstitution settings?” And he’d do it for me, and then life would be lovely. (Can you tell I’ve got a hideous sinusy cold and am a bit light-headed?!)
:-)Hope you feel better soon – I’m only just getting over a cold that’s lingered for over two weeks and I’ll be heartily glad to see the back of it!
I missed this over Xmas I guess… but just gave me a good laugh thinking about my next career as an app 😉 Thanks for the nice mentions.
That’s a good idea, Jane – I hadn’t though about locking them. Brilliant! I assume it’s because Trados regards them as numbers, but perhaps someone better versed in the complexities can explain. Last year I translated a whole series of recipe files that turned out to have been converted from pdf files, so the ingredient quantities were all over the place and I had to be very careful when closing up the gap between the units and the numbers. Locking them would have been much simpler! I love the way that writing a blog post produces solutions to my niggles too, so thank you very much 🙂
That’s very useful – thank you, Claire! I am working on multiple-file project at the moment, so I am going to try it right now!
Oh good! Do let us know how you get on – I found it a revelation!
Instead of using the Control key to select the files one by one, you can also click on a file, then press and hold the Shift key, and then click on another file. This will select the two files you clicked on as well as all the files listed between them.
Yet another method is to click anywhere in the file list (on a file or on empty space), and then press and hold the Control key and then the A key. This will select all the files in the list.
Thank you – also good to know! I’ve used the shift method to select segments, but hadn’t thought about using it for files too.
I didn’t know you could open the files in the order you wanted, thanks ! Opening multiple files is also very useful when running the QA checker.
I only discovered the order thing recently and it’s extremely useful.
Thank you for this tip, I read the article a while ago and today I needed to work on multiple files at once so I read it again. Great for an export in Word if you need to spell check the translations there.
I’ve worked with multiple files and applied changes individually for too long. Your article is a godsend. Many thanks.
Glad it helped!