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Keep format after retrofit from Word?

Ingrid

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
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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member

    Tried it out with simple file.
    In my case, there is no error and there is no result (Italic) too.
    Looks like a bug, it should be fixed.

    regards
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member in reply to Former Member

    Try like this.
    testing) at SDL Trados Studio add Italic some word, and see what is happening at MS Word
    workaroud) at MS Word add the same tag pair (exactly same color/size/font etc..) when you "Find and replace" it/them.
    In my case it worked

    - turn "Track changes" off
    - what is retrofit ? I tested with regular
    - "Bold" looks dumb too. Very nice..
  • 0 in reply to Evzen Polenka
    Hi Evzen :)

    Actually your thread was one of the first I read while searching for an answer to my question - and I tried it right away, but it didn't work for me... Paul seems to think it might be a bug, possibly with the latest version though I'm not sure about that, and intends to report it so ti can be fixed.

    I was looking for something else in the meanwhile, or maybe get the "official" answer that it's not my ignorance letting me down but that there is really no way to do that right now.
  • 0 in reply to Ingrid

    Hi  

    Unknown said:
    Paul seems to think it might be a bug, possibly with the latest version though I'm not sure about that, and intends to report it so ti can be fixed.

    As I mentioned earlier:

    - bilingual review does not work for this.  This is a bug we need to fix.

    - retrofit does work

    Your problem is that the file is pretty large and taggy so takes quite some processing to achieve what you want.  I think that even if the bilingual review approach did work you'd probably still have problems with a file this complex.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

    ________________________
    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

    Now the question is what will happen with that?
    Is that affecting Studio 2019 only? Or even latest CU of Studio 2017? Or just certain formats? Or certain formats AND certain Studio builds/versions?
    And what is actually the intended behavior? Is anyone in SDL able to tell?
    I can imagine MANY VERY upset engineers if the behavior changes (as I mention in the other thread, this technique is used for ages)...
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member in reply to Ingrid

    I believe You have solved this problem perfectly using my PlugiIn already.
    Did I understand your comment wrongly ?

    In that case there should be no more 'serious' comment about it between you and me.
    But, looks like you are still serious about it.
    I'm confusing.

    1. I showed you two(2) workarounds
    2. the 1st workaround revealed itself fail finally (I'll tell you about it technically later on)
    3. the 2nd workaround (my SDL Trados Studio PlugIn), you have tested it and satisfied with it. Right ?

    SDL Trados Stduio Editor View is just showing the file, "sdlxliff".
    Talking about the Italic only, sdlxliff has three fold tier structures.
    1st tier is central, located head of the file it is the only one in the file.
    2nd tier is local-central, located at the head of each segment if it has Italic tag(s) inside of it. It is the only one in the segment.
    3rd tier is pure local, located at the exact point it showing the user Italic. It has 1:1 corresponding so could be so many.

    my 1st workaround is regarding the 3rd tier only(indirectly because you are in MS Word at that moment). Naturally, If the segment has Italic originally(that means, it has 1st/2nd tier already ready), it does not matter you added extra Italic 100 times or not. But, If your segment do not have Italic originally at all (that means, it does not have 2nd tier for sure, and probably neither the 1st tier too), you can do nothing, nothing at all. Even though my VBA codes (3rd tier) are perfect, when the review file imported back to SDL Trados Stduio, it make only Error at the first appearance of my Italic.

    my 1st workaround is finished like this. Fail. That is why I wrote tier structure has "intrinsic limitations" or characteristics. Plainly to say, this kind of tier structure is too complicated, needlessly, I guess.

    Ah, the 2nd workaround - my SDL Trados Studio PlugIn is dealing with sdlxliff directly, so you do not have to care about this silly structure.
    It is just adding Italic and forget about the rest.
    That is so easy and fast, Right ?
  • 0 in reply to Paul
    Yes, this is it. The file is clearly too big and awkward to handle. But unfortunately I cannot change that... and the tags have to be set right in Studio for the return package, so I cannot just edit them in Word after editing my target file.
    And as I am in France, Retrofit has gone modern and strikes (at least on my computer).
  • 0 in reply to Evzen Polenka

    Hi

    It is indeed another case of "good bugs, bad bugs".  I think the intended behaviour is that Word formatting should be brought in, and you should not have to "force" the behaviour with text that behaves like a tag for certain formats.  If it's "fixed" I think the technique just needs to change so you work with styles instead of text replacement... unless you can tell me why a "fix" would be more problematic than that?  I tested in 2019 and in the latest SR1, and I only tested with Word files.  In my opinion it should not matter which formats are used, the solution should support the file.  So for XML files it should not work at all for example, but for IDML or Word the process should ensure that the tags are mapped correctly.  That's how I look at it anyway.

    When I get some feedback from the team (probably after this week) I'll let you know in this thread.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

    ________________________
    Design your own training!
    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
    Tell us what you need in our Community Solutions Hub

  • 0 in reply to Paul

    Unknown said:
    Your problem is that the file is pretty large and taggy so takes quite some processing to achieve what you want.  I think that even if the bilingual review approach did work you'd probably still have problems with a file this complex.

    I don't think so, because - according to my experience - importing bilingual review file does not do as much god-knows-which postprocessing as retrofit... AFAIK, it simply imports the file as-is, without all that crazy ages-taking computing of editing differences which is done by retrofit (which is exactly the performace-killer, making retrofit actually useless in real-life projects).

    Plus, importing bilingual review Word file can be replaced by processing using SDL XLIFF Converter (the following guide was created back when Studio 2011 and 2014 were used, but should still work):

    When “Update from External Review” does not work – SDL XLIFF Converter

    If the “Update from External Review” does not work – e.g. because the review Word file was edited using Microsoft Word 2003, so the internal information stored inside the DOCX file structure is corrupted or lost – it’s still possible to import the reviewer’s edits into the project using SDL XLIFF Converter.

    SDL XLIFF Converter is a standalone application installed together with both Studio 2011 and Studio 2014:
    Dropdown menu in Trados Studio showing SDL XLIFF Converter for Microsoft Office selected.

    To mimic a behavior of the Studio’s built-in import it's necessary to set the application settings as follows:
    SDL XLIFF Converter settings window with 'Translation Rejected' selected in the dropdown menu for segment status update.

    Add translated SDLXLIFF file (or use the “Load files from project” button) and reviewed DOCX file and click “Import”:
    SDL XLIFF Converter import window showing source SDLXLIFF file and updated DOCX file ready for import.

    SDL XLIFF Converter should import reviewer’s edits from the review Word file successfully.

    Perhaps using this process the added italic formatting would be imported successfully?!
    emoji


    Generated Image Alt-Text
    [edited by: Trados AI at 1:54 PM (GMT 0) on 28 Feb 2024]
  • 0 in reply to Evzen Polenka
    Hi , I tried it with the SDLXLIFF Converter and see exactly the same result. I also tried it using a much older version, Studio 2014. It didn't work in there either. I think this is a more fundamental problem that probably never worked as intended for formatting so I'm wondering whether it was ever intended to at all? might know the answer to this if he has time as he created the original SDLXLIFF Converter for Microsoft Office.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

    ________________________
    Design your own training!
    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
    Tell us what you need in our Community Solutions Hub

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member in reply to Ingrid

    I recommend you to test with it before you post something if possible.
    I myself keep this simple rule strictly always if possible.

    You have questioned "from the scratch ?"
    My answer should be "Yes, of course."

    I'm attaching a jpg.
    It shows screen of all the "a/e/i/o/u"s changed from normal (scratch) to Italic and goes back to normal (scratch).

    regards

    Screenshot of Trados Studio showing text with vowels 'aeiou' in normal font style.
    emoji


    Generated Image Alt-Text
    [edited by: Trados AI at 1:54 PM (GMT 0) on 28 Feb 2024]
  • 0 in reply to Paul
    The point is that the formatting must be apparently added the very same way which Studio itself marks the formatting in the bilingual Word file created from a particular source file type.
    I.e. in IDML files it's the <italic> 'physical XML tag'... but might be different in other file types, e.g. Word (maybe in Word you need to actual format the text, not add the 'physical tag'... I don't really remember all these details from the top of my head, I simply look at the actual file content and only then see what needs to be done).
    That's something what needs either a lot of more-or-less blind experimenting, or simply a knowledge of how Studio works internally.

    All that of course only if there isn't any additional layer of functionality within Studio which would prevent this from working.... e.g. something added in recent builds to prevent the problems created by one of the CUs where QuickInserts added different tags than those in source segtment (like <b> vs. <strong>, <i> vs. <italic>, etc.), which caused the famous "Multiple tags with the same ID 'Italic' have different..." error.

    I can only say that both the IDML process described in the other thread and also the import using SDL XLIFF Converter work(ed) perfectly.
    BTW, the SDL XLIFF Converter process assumes of course that Changes Tracking is turned ON in the Word file... because that's how the bilingual review import work as well - it looks ONLY for segments with tracked changes; if segment does not contain tracked changes, it's ignored. Hence the explicit instruction in the guide to set the corresponding option in the Converter settings.
Reply
  • 0 in reply to Paul
    The point is that the formatting must be apparently added the very same way which Studio itself marks the formatting in the bilingual Word file created from a particular source file type.
    I.e. in IDML files it's the <italic> 'physical XML tag'... but might be different in other file types, e.g. Word (maybe in Word you need to actual format the text, not add the 'physical tag'... I don't really remember all these details from the top of my head, I simply look at the actual file content and only then see what needs to be done).
    That's something what needs either a lot of more-or-less blind experimenting, or simply a knowledge of how Studio works internally.

    All that of course only if there isn't any additional layer of functionality within Studio which would prevent this from working.... e.g. something added in recent builds to prevent the problems created by one of the CUs where QuickInserts added different tags than those in source segtment (like <b> vs. <strong>, <i> vs. <italic>, etc.), which caused the famous "Multiple tags with the same ID 'Italic' have different..." error.

    I can only say that both the IDML process described in the other thread and also the import using SDL XLIFF Converter work(ed) perfectly.
    BTW, the SDL XLIFF Converter process assumes of course that Changes Tracking is turned ON in the Word file... because that's how the bilingual review import work as well - it looks ONLY for segments with tracked changes; if segment does not contain tracked changes, it's ignored. Hence the explicit instruction in the guide to set the corresponding option in the Converter settings.
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