Formatting doesn't apply on the output file (Persian target language)

Hi,

Recently, we had a big issue with SDL Trados. When formatting a part of text in Trados, such as making the text bold, the output file won't take this format. In this case, in the word document you can see that the "bold" icon is activated, but the text isn't bold at all. I will send the .xliff file and its output for you to look at it. Please help me to solve the problem, cause we've assigned 19 projects to our translators, which each of them has around 140.000 words, and you know how much time it takes to manually make the output formatting right. (Segments 24 and 26 has formatting in the attached file; see Microsoft Word comments in the word file)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2wibx37ttx0vuvl/AADEM4_n8bGgMTOfOImpSar8a?dl=0

 

Regards,

Alireza

  • You are misunderstanding the role of CAT tool in the process - it's a TRANSLATION-ONLY(!) tool, not formatting tool... you CANNOT apply formatting to the translation if it's not in the source already.
    I.e. you either have to have the formatting present in the source already, or you need to apply the formatting to the translated target source (in its original format, i.e. Word in this case).

  • So why there's formatting buttons in Trados? By the way, I make something bold that needs to be bold (When you see a part of text has formatting in source segment, you select that part in target segment and apply the relevant formatting).
    In fact, I think you're misunderstanding the role of it, cause Trados applies the format of the source file on the target file and tries to make it as similar as possible, and It's not a simple tool just for translating! You didn't catch my issue. It's with RTL texts. When you open the target file, the formatting is applied, but not correctly.
  • Dear Allreza,

    In our work with Word documents, we often have to apply formatting in the target which is not present in the source for different languages (in French you have to translate words like 3rd using super script or in Spanish or Portuguese you might to use italics for foreign words).

    You are right, it is a standard feature for the translation of different file types and I can confirm that it works well in our environment. It is also supported by SDL Studio and you might want to log a case with their support team.

    I would only add you might get more help from other users in the community if you could mention which version of SDL Studio you are using and which versoin of the Word file types you are working with, in case there is any known bug.

    Daniel
  • Hi Daniel,
    Thank you for your reply.
    My SDL Trados: 2017 (Not SR1), My Microsoft Word: 2016. I've tried it on our in-house translators' systems, and it's the same. Their SDL version is 2017 SR1, and their Microsoft Word version is 2013.

    Regards,
    Alireza
  • Hi  

    Generally Evzen is correct about these things... he's not in this case as you can introduce simple formatting into a supported file such as Word.  I tested your file and when I look at the target text that is supposed to be bold it is apparently bold:

    This is very odd though because if I make some other text bold you can definitely see the difference.  So I selected the text and "unbolded it" and now it clearly displays as bold even though the control says it is not:

    So I went back to Studio and discovered two interesting things:

    1. The ability to use these formatting tags only works with Studio under the following conditions:
      • there must either be similar formatting tags in the source file somewhere, or
      • there must be another file open for translation that has formatting tags in it
    2. If I use a European target language then the formatting displays perfectly

    I'll log this with the development team for investigation as something is not working correctly.

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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  • Hi Paul,
    Thank you for your quick reply. It would be great having this issue solved. Actually we have other issues in Persian with Trados that we will report later as one log. Microsoft Word also had these problems with Persian, but now they're gone. So, we will be grateful if SDL solve them too.

    Regards,
    Alireza
  • Unknown said:
    he's not in this case as you can introduce simple formatting into a supported file such as Word.

    Hmmm, is this visibly documented somewhere in details? Like what exactly this "simple formatting" is and which exactly the "supported formats" are?
    I guess if it would be, we wouldn't see such kind of reports/questions like every month or so.

    Unknown said:
    So I went back to Studio and discovered two interesting things:

    This sounds to me like actually UNwanted behavior (that formatting applying), rather than intentional.

  • Unknown said:
    Hmmm, is this visibly documented somewhere in details? Like what exactly this "simple formatting" is and which exactly the "supported formats" are?
    I guess if it would be, we wouldn't see such kind of reports/questions like every month or so.

    Interesting question Evzen.  Does this look familiar to you?

    Same capability has always been in Trados applications for files that support them.  This mostly applies to Office and predefined ml formats as we don't always know what controls are needed to make a text bold... so in custom XML for example?  You can see in the toolbar what simple formats are available for the filetypes you open.  If they are greyed out then they are not available.

    You can read more in the help if you look for Quick Insert which has been sold over and over by our marketing team... so much so it can be quite hard to convince translators to use the tags in the source instead!

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
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  • Unknown said:
    Same capability has always been in Trados applications for files that support them.  This mostly applies to Office and predefined ml formats as we don't always know what controls are needed to make a text bold... so in custom XML for example?  You can see in the toolbar what simple formats are available for the filetypes you open.  If they are greyed out then they are not available.

    You can read more in the help if you look for Quick Insert which has been sold over and over by our marketing team... so much so it can be quite hard to convince translators to use the tags in the source instead!

    My question was about a clear list of types of formatting and file formats. "Try and see if/what is possible" is not really acceptable answer.

    Quick Insert is about inserting tags which are present already in the source segment, it does not apply to this discussed adding of formatting which is not present in source segment.

  • Unknown said:
    Quick Insert is about inserting tags which are present already in the source segment, it does not apply to this discussed adding of formatting which is not present in source segment.

    You are confusing QuickInsert with QuickPlace.  Easily done... I did it too!

    Unknown said:
    My question was about a clear list of types of formatting and file formats. "Try and see if/what is possible" is not really acceptable answer.

    ok - I don't think we specifically publish this so I'll ask for the help to be updated.  But I imagine, as I imagine you can too, that it will be:

    • All Office formats
    • html and derivatives
    • InDesign
    • PDF
    • FrameMaker
    • InCopy
    • OpenDocument formats

    That's probably more or less it (I think) because anything else could have custom controls that we won't know about.  The formatting is usually the same simple options in each one:

    • bold
    • italic
    • underline
    • superscript/subscript
    • apply small caps

    I guess it's helpful to explain as much as we can, so thank you for the prompt Evzen.  We may be missing this sort of info since the Trados days!

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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