Keep format after retrofit from Word?

Question

Hi ! 
 I have to deal with quite a long file (over 10.000 segments) in which a lot of words should be italicized but aren't. I have looked for a quick way of fixing that, and came up with the following: - export file for review (as a .docx) - make all the changes in Word (using find & replace with formatting) - retrofit after review into SDL I had great hopes with this method, but they proved wrong: SDL does report every single change, but sticks to the previous formatting and doesn't take format changes from Word into account. So... does anyone have an idea? Please help before I start italicizing my home and kids just for fun... Truffe

Paul · Answer

Unknown said: - export file for review (as a .docx) - make all the changes in Word (using find & replace with formatting) - retrofit after review into SDL Hi Le Boulaire Ingrid Can I clarify that you saved the target file for your review? I wasn't sure because you said "export file for review (as a .docx)". I tested the workflow and found the following. This fails: export for bilingual review (which is a DOCX) make the changes to italic in Word update from bilingual review This works: save the target file (which is a DOCX because my source was a DOCX) make the changes to italic in Word update using Retrofit I'll log the bilingual review bug, but the Retrofit approach works for me. I'm wondering about your search and replace method because it seems very odd you get tags in your file like this italic word. Did you search and replace formatting or search and replace something you thought would add the tags in Word? I hope we can sort this out... heaven forbid you have to italicise your kids! Regards Paul

Paul · Answer

Hi Le Boulaire Ingrid 
 
If you are ok to share files can you send me the following and I'll take a look. I'd like to know why this won't work for you. 
 
- your translated sdlxliff 
- your corrected target file with the italics added 
 
You can email this to pfilkin@sdl.com

Paul · Answer

Hi Le Boulaire Ingrid 
 It does take a fair while, because the file is over 10k segments and full of tags. So Studio is doing quite a bit of work every time you open the file. But it did work. I put the updated SDLXLIFF and the retrofit file (which you can open in the alignment editor if you want to see what it did) into dropbox and sent you a link. 
 I also accepted the changes in the file and then thought I shouldn&rsquo;t have as now you can&rsquo;t see what changed without looking through the alignment file&hellip; sorry about that. Probably the things to note with a file like this are these: 
 
 Good to clean the source properly before handling it. It&rsquo;s full of unnecessary tags and it&rsquo;ll make the work easier for Studio if you remove them first. 
 The file is testing the limits of Studio in terms of effective performance. Files this large start to become difficult to handle and very slow as they are so large. Good to split the source file into several smaller ones and you&rsquo;ll find it&rsquo;s easier, and faster, to work with them. 
 
 Regards 
 Paul

Paul · Answer

Hi Le Boulaire Ingrid 
 Unknown said: Could the RAM of my computer not be up to the task, which would explain why you can achieve the retrofit within a couple of hours and I either need a whole night for it to complete or must just cancel it because it stops at 88%? 
 Possibly... it took me less than 45 minutes (ran it during the first half of the Liverpool vs Dortmund game ;-)). Large taggy files are not handled very efficiently. I have an SSD drive which is what makes the most difference to Studio performance and 16GB of RAM. 
 Unknown said: I am aware the file should have been cleaned and needed to be shorter - but its already a return package I received for a review, I am not the translator. I don't know how to cut it up after the translation has already been done, or how to clean tags. 
 If it was already a package you probably shouldn't clean it up. This task is best carried our prior to package creation. Trans Tools is a good mechanism for this: 
 https://appstore.sdl.com/language/app/transtools/543/ 
 You could cut up the SDLXLIFF and this might make it easier to work with but you would not be able to use Retrofit if you did that as you would not be able to save the split files as a formatted DOCX. 
 Unknown said: If I understand you correctly, there is no bug with SDL nor any problem with the file, it's just my computer that cannot achieve the task and I will have to either find a more efficient one or just do the changes one by one? (the file I sent you was a kind of a "test" file, with just 500 changes where I need over 10.000 to be made ;) ). 
 There is a bug because the changes to italic in a bilingual review file doesn't work. We need to fix this. But Retrofit does work... possibly needs more processing power than you have? 
 Regards 
 Paul

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Keep format after retrofit from Word?