Setting a blank segment to "Translated" gives you a blank (empty space) in the generated file

Question

I noticed something very odd with Trados Studio and I was wondering if this is "intentional behavior". So far I have only tested with Word and Excel file types, but basically take any segment where the target is blank and set the status to "Translated". When you generate the target file you get nothing (just empty space)! 
 I was always under the impression if the target is blank (nothing typed) no matter the status, Trados Studio should always give you the source text?

Paul · Accepted Answer

Hi Jesse Good , 
 
Seems it's not a bug at all! It's a feature that was added and not documented publicly. It works for these filetypes only and this is deliberate: 
 
Microsoft PowerPoint 2007-2016 
Microsoft Word 2007-2016 
Microsoft Excel 2007-2016 
HTML 4 
HTML 5 
Json

Paul · Answer

Hi Jesse Good 
 Unknown said: 1. Is it documented anywhere? 
 Only internally. I don't know why this didn't go in the release notes. 
 Unknown said: 2. What files types currently have this behavior? 
 
 I'm sharing exactly what we have written up internally: 
 ====================== 
 Requirements for translating empty target segments 
 I. Filters for bilingual files (XLIFF, GDF, Bilingual Excel, etc.) The content from the target segment, whether it is empty or not, will always be written as it is in the target file, regardless of segment pair status and the contents of the source segment. 
 II. Filters for non-bilingual files For this type of filters there are 2 different situations, according to the segment pair status: 
 1. Segment pair is not confirmed This case represents all the segment pair statuses except Translated, Translation Approved and Signed-Off. 
 
 Outcome: the source text is copied into the target file. 
 2. Segment pair is confirmed This case represents the segment pair statuses Translated, Translation Approved and Signed-Off. 
 
 Outcome: the source text is not copied into the target file, leaving the text empty. 
 Notes: Other segment properties such as lock status or match percentage must not affect the rules above. 
 Out-of-segment content is not subject to these rules. 
 Filters which USE this processor as described are these: 
 
 Microsoft PowerPoint 2007-2016 
 Microsoft Word 2007-2016 
 Microsoft Excel 2007-2016 
 HTML 4 
 HTML 5Json 
 
 ====================== 
 So if you are getting the same behaviour with other filetypes can you share some examples with me? I just spoke to the filter manager and there have been no changes in this area so it would be good to validate them and understand what's happenning. 
 Thank you

Paul · Answer

Hi Jesse Good 
 
It seems that we now support every file format apart from bilingual formats and old ones, like Quark, with this behaviour. It was apparently implemented this way a long time ago and when the new ML filetypes were released we changed it. So the reason we only mentioned the ones I listed earlier was because these were the only ones that needed to be changed. The rest already had it. 
 
The reason it wasn't documented is because we probably forgot about it amongst all the noise of everything else going on and the technical notes made by development never made it into the release notes at the time.

Paul · Answer

Hi Jesse Good 
 I think this may fall into the category of "good bugs" as opposed to a "bad bug"!! Although it's worth asking the question as I may be denying the team credit where it's due for a planned feature rather than a fluke. I'll ask the team.

Trados Studio > 1. Trados Studio

Setting a blank segment to "Translated" gives you a blank (empty space) in the generated file