Under Community Review

Enable Import of All XLIFF-Based Formats (Including memoQ, MXLIFF, etc.) into Translation Memory (TM)

Description:
Currently, Trados Studio only supports importing SDL-specific XLIFF (.sdlxliff) files into TMs, excluding industry-standard XLIFF derivatives such as memoQ’s MQXLIFF, MXLIFF, or other custom variants. This limitation forces users to manually convert these files into supported formats or use workarounds like exporting to TMX, which introduces unnecessary friction into the workflow. What is surprising me is that Trados allows importing such files to work on them in the editor, so using the same concept, it should allow importing them into TM to make sure users can leverage whatever is translated and approved in those other xliff formats into a Studio TM. File import dialog showing a folder structure with an SDL XLIFF file selected and supported file types dropdown menu visible.Cartoon of a robot labeled Trados examining a memoQ XLIFF scroll with confusion, while a man holds a sign saying 'Just let it in! It's still XLIFF!'

Given that XLIFF is an XML-based standard and most of these formats differ only slightly in structure or metadata, it would be relatively simple to implement a parser that either:

  1. Supports direct import of these variants, or

  2. Provides an optional pre-processing step that extracts segment-level bilingual data and converts it to a Trados-compatible format like tab-delimited bilingual text.

Benefits:

  • Promotes interoperability across major CAT tools.

  • Saves time for freelance translators and LSPs who work across platforms.

  • Reduces reliance on third-party tools and manual conversion efforts.

  • Increases adoption of Trados Studio in multi-tool environments.

    Sameh Ragab

Sameh Elsharkawy

  • Hi    - I think you can do this:

    1. Batch-convert third-party CAT tool formats to SDLXLIFF as part of normal project preparation (you could even create a custom batch task sequence that would only convert the files and not do anything else with them). As you say, Studio is the most interoperable tool here supporting generic XLIFF, XTM XLIFF, Phrase XLIFF (mxliff) and MemoQ XLIFF, which can all be prepared in this way.
    2. Take the resulting SDLXLIFF files and import them into the TM.

    Direct import is not possible as we do need to convert the source formats into one generic format that we can import, but it should be very easy to achieve using Studio's flexible capabilities. (We cannot implement four or five different import mechanisms, but we do support one conversion mechanism for all).