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Client requesting translation in bilingual format

Paul Golf

I have a client who is requesting the final translation in parallel bilingual format. The export for bilungual review batch command does a pretty decent job of getting what I need, except that in the review document that's created, all the formatting tags are displayed in long form (i.e. <italics> </italics>). Is there any way of exporting to bilingual format which applies the tags to Word rather than displays them for editing? Also I'm surprised that Trados doesn't seem to have a feature to generate a finalized document in bilingual format. Surely it can't be that uncommon for clients to request this?
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  • 0
    In fact, from all the weirdest clients I have seen in my career, NONE was ever requesting such weird format.
    Why would anyone want such document, instead of the ORIGINAL format (just translated)?!?!
    And if someone wants such "two-column" thing, they use Excel...
  • 0
    The simple answer is NO. If you think this is what you need, why don't you just use search and replace in Word to get the formatting done for you?
    Of prepare the text upfront, converting text to table, adjusting the width, copying this table and adding it as a second column, then hiding the first column, translating this and unhiding the hidden column in the final file.

    @Evzen: well, I would have expected you having seen such requests nearly on daily basis. In fact it is nothing strange when translating contracts, agreements or similar. And I would always prefer using Word than Excel for this.

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  • 0 in reply to Jerzy Czopik

    Unknown said:
    I would have expected you having seen such requests nearly on daily basis.

    I work for localization companies, not translation companies... i.e. no such little things like contracts or agreements, but mass-localization of software, multimedia, e-learnings, websites, etc.

    In any case, I see no point having contract or agreement in some funny side-by-side table format instead of ORIGINAL contract format, ready to be signed.

    From my experience such requirements are rather based on completely wrong (or completely missing!) idea how translators work - that they open the source document in Word and start typing the translations directly in it - than on a real needs for such format.
    In other words, wrong and unmanaged client's expectations...
  • 0
    Hi ,

    I guess you can't be the only one who gets asked for things like this as I published a new app to the AppStore yesterday that does something similar to what you're after. Take a look at this one and see whether it will deliver what you need?

    appstore.sdl.com/.../

    It's quite interesting as it will deliver a formatted document with source and target together, either sentence by sentence, or paragraph by paragraph. I apparently works on all formats as long as the sdlxliff file is errorless but I have only tested it with Word and excel. I also didn't try to break it, so the results on fairly straightforward documents were quite good.

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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  • 0 in reply to Paul
    That app looks very interesting. I do get the same type of request occasionally, mostly in two scenarios:

    - A non-target language speaker will be laying out the final document and they want to be able to quickly identify to target text that goes with the source; this is relatively common when the client provides a Word document for translation that was converted from a PDF, where the original file was something else, usually InDesign, and the post-translation DTP will be handled by a third party.

    - The translation will be reviewed by someone who's not a translator, usually a subject-matter expert who works for the client, and they want to see the source and target side by side.

    Most of the time, clients who request this will actually prepare the bilingual table themselves, usually in Word, but it does happen occasionally that they leave that task to the translator.
  • 0 in reply to Nora Díaz
    Hi Nora, this app doesn't prepare a table though. It tries to place the source followed by the target in a single file. No tables, no numbering, all formatting intact. If you want me to test a file you have feel free to send one over and we can look at the layout.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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    Design your own training!
    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
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  • 0 in reply to Paul
    Thanks Paul, this app does look very interesting, especially as they seem to have some good dictionary features for Chinese.

    For those who find it strange that such a request was made, I am working on a large volume of qualitative research data for a medical research project. The research team is multi-lingual, and they want to be able to easily work simultaneously on the raw Chinese data as well as the English reference material. From the point of view of publishing their research in both English and Chinese, they want quick and easy referencing, so I don't think it's an unreasonable request. As it is such a simple thing to do I'm surprised it isn't featured as an option for batch tasks in Studio
  • 0 in reply to Paul
    Oh I see. That's a less common request for me. I've only had a couple of requests for something like this, and it was a nightmare to prepare the files manually.
  • 0 in reply to Paul
    Hey Paul,
    I'm really excited for this. My coworkers have asked me before how to produce a target containing both source and target languages. I hope to give it a try soon.
  • 0 in reply to Evzen Polenka
    Sorry for slight off-topic here...
    In any case, I see no point having contract or agreement in some funny side-by-side table format instead of ORIGINAL contract format, ready to be signed.

    From my experience such requirements are rather based on completely wrong (or completely missing!) idea how translators work - that they open the source document in Word and start typing the translations directly in it - than on a real needs for such format.
    In other words, wrong and unmanaged client's expectations...

    Well, you do not see...
    Then imagine you're buying something and have an interpreter helping you to sign a contract. But you wanna read what you sign - same applies to the other party, not speaking your language. So either you or the other party must sign an exemplar, where you or he does not understand a word. So why not put these versions both on one paper and sign this? It is indeed quite common, even if you don't see any sense in there. And this has nothing to do with the understanding of how translation works, but a simple customer convenience thing...

    _________________________________________________________

    When asking for help here, please be as accurate as possible. Please always remember to give the exact version of product used and all possible error messages received. The better you describe your problem, the better help you will get.

    Want to learn more about Trados Studio? Visit the Community Hub. Have a good idea to make Trados Studio better? Publish it here.