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How can I set Trados 2019 to insert non-breaking spaces before punctuation in French automatically?

Josephine Dedhar

I normally translate into English but I have an EN-FR document to translate at the moment that contains a lot of quotation marks, colons and semi-colons, and I've found that although Trados automatically uses French speech marks «» when I type ", it doesn't add the non-breaking space after/before. It also doesn't insert a non-breaking space before exclamation or question marks, colons or semi-colons. Surely there's  setting somewhere for this that I've missed? It seems quite fundamental for French TL translators so I can't believe that Trados is incapable of doing it. The fact that there is "French-compliant check" option in the QA settings and that the «  » button in the QuickInsert menu includes non-breaking spaces implies that SDL knows that French requires spaces before certain punctuation marks so why do I have to add them in manually?
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    I'm not certain, if that helps, but you can check this setting in your project settings (and use it in the future for project templates). Please note, that changing this in File -> Options will NOT influence any of your current projects. It will work only for new projects, started with your default template (including translation of single documents).

    Trados Studio Project Settings window showing the 'Measurements' section with an option selected to 'Always insert a non-breaking space between the number and the unit'.

     

    Otherwise, a major software like Microsoft Word does not enter such spaces either, so I wouldn't expect Studio to do. In the end of the day it is a character you have to enter like letters and spaces. So simply press CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE to have what you need. I do not see a major difference between writing in Word and having to do that and when typing in Studio. You can also enter a simple space and run a search & replace for this afterwards.

    So or so - TBH I do not see this to be a big deal, as you must enter a character there anyway.

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    [edited by: Trados AI at 5:42 AM (GMT 0) on 29 Feb 2024]
  • 0 in reply to Jerzy Czopik
    Thanks, but that doesn't help unfortunately as I'm not talking about units of measurement.

    Just to be clear, Microsoft Word and other Office applications *do* insert a space automatically when the language is set to French, which is why I don't have the instinct to do it manually. As I understand it, other CAT tools such as Wordfast and MemoQ do too. I don't think it's a difficult feature to implement and the point of using software like is to save time and improve accuracy and consistency, and the lack of this simple automation goes against all those aims.
  • 0 in reply to Josephine Dedhar
    Also just to add, with closing quotation marks it is problematic in Studio because if I insert the space manually after the word, the speech marks that follow will then be in the wrong direction, i.e. « Text «
    Therefore I have to type the word and closing quotation marks without the space and then go back to put the space in. I find it very hard to believe that this is the intended behaviour of a top-of-the-range translation tool.
  • 0 in reply to Josephine Dedhar
    I have just checked the behavior of Studio, when inserting (typing) your quotation marks - Studio does enter a non-breaking space after « and before »
    This setting is most probably controlled by the auto-correct settings, so be so kind and check your settings, if the "Replace as you type" option is activated in your Studio. Unfortunately there is indeed no correction for a colon and so on, but from what I see it is just a different space you need to enter when typing, no need to o back.
    However, I admit, it would be great to have this as auto-correction there.

    _________________________________________________________

    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.

  • 0 in reply to Josephine Dedhar

     

    I had a little play with this and can confirm that by default Word does this as you have stated (I had no idea... but very cool); memoQ does not do this and neither does Studio.  Wordfast Classic does, but that would be because you are translating in Word.

    However, you could use AutoHotkey for this.  Maybe something like this:

    ;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ; French spaces
    ;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    #IfWinActive SDL Trados Studio
    :?*:!::{ASC 0160}{!}
    :?*:`?::{ASC 0160}{?}
    :?*:`;::{ASC 0160}{;}
    :?*:`: ::{ASC 0160}{:}
    :?*:»::{ASC 0160}{»}
    :?*:«::{«}{ASC 0160}
    Return
    #IfWinActive

    The advantage being this could be used for any application, although I set this script to work only in Studio with the WinActive command.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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  • 0 in reply to Paul
    Hi Paul
    Great - not necessary however for the « » signs, as Studio does enter non-breaking spaces there by default (at least, when "Replace as you type" for French is activated).

    _________________________________________________________

    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.

  • 0

    Hi Josephine, there is no function in Studio that allows you to add spaces automatically before punctuation, but you can use QA Checker to check if there is o isn't a space befor punctuation. In Project Settings go to Verification and activate this control:

    Trados Studio Project Settings window showing Verification tab with QA Checker 3.0 options. 'Check for missing spaces before punctuation' is highlighted.

    At least you can check if you missed a space before punctuation.

    Regards, Angelo
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    [edited by: Trados AI at 5:42 AM (GMT 0) on 29 Feb 2024]
  • 0 in reply to Paul

    Just in case that anybody comes across this script, you need to remove 'SDL' from the first string to read as #IfWinActive Trados Studio to make it work.
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