managing a .csv file exported from a website

Question

Hi everyone, 
 I have to translate a .CVS file exported from a website (i asked for other formats and the owener told me that is not possible for them), below an example of the file:

31,377,it,NASTRO MONOADESIVO RIFLETTENTE PER INTERNO,"**ALU BAND** &Atilde;&uml; il nastro **monoadesivo acrilico** sviluppato specificamente per la **sigillatura ermetica di barriere vapore alluminizzate**, come le membrane della serie **BARRIER ALU**. 
 
 How can I manage the ** and special symbol? the same for the number at the beggining? 
 I Attached a screen with more context. 
 Thanks in advance

Paul · Accepted Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 In this case all you do is this: 
 Activate the Embedded Content and add one rule. The rule is a new tag pair using this expression: 
 \*{2} 
 
 You can refine the rule using the Advanced Settings in the rule when you create it: 
 
 This way the bold tags can be hidden as they are only formatting: 
 
 Or show them: 
 
 And you could add formatting, also through the tag creation options: 
 
 The it would look like this: 
 
 Or this:

Paul · Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 Thanks for screenshot... although you seem to handling this as an Excel file as opposed to CSV. At least this is what it looks like since you have everything in one column. Is this how it's supposed to be handled, so not like this... or something like this? 
 
 It seems to me you may be corrupting the intended formatting of this file because of the way you are looking at it and this is making it difficult for you to understand how it should be handled. Excel could also be responsible for corrupting some of the characters due to encoding issues and this could be the cause of your "special chars" problem. 
 Can you open the CSV you were sent, before you open it in Excel and mess it up, in a decent text editor and then add a BOM (byte order mark... a good text editor can do this, something like Notepad++ or EditPad). Then import the CSV into Excel as opposed to opening it in Excel. Select the comma as the delimiter and then you'll be able to see what it should look like. 
 Then you'll also be able to see how best to handle it... if you get it Excel ready you can probably handle it easily with the Excel filetype in Studio, just adding a couple of embedded content rules for the ** symbols. The numbers will be on segments of their own and so easy to handle.

Paul · Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 I can't really answer this question because I have no idea what you have actually done and I can't see where the problem might be originating from. If you can send me the original source file, your filetype settings, and your translated sdlxliff, then I'll be happy to take a look for you? 
 If this is ok you can send it to pfilkin@sdl.com

Paul · Answer

Hi Sarah Ianieri 
 Thanks for sending me your files. The part I'm missing is your source file... the one you actually translated. Your source was a CSV but you imported this into Excel and translated the Excel. I think the first thing to check is that you didn't make a mistake when you imported the CSV as this is very easy to do. If the Excel didn't represent the format correctly then your ability to put it back as a CSV will be limited. 
 Certainly the CSV source file is a mess and doesn't follow the headings at all. I would be having a discussion with the client if this is what I received.

Paul · Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 Sarah Ianieri said: Which is the best format for translating a web site for example, xml?html? 
 Most likely html. If your client is extracting text from an html you need to tell him just to provide the html. 
 Sarah Ianieri said: yes, I think the problem is when i convert the CVS file into Excel that all the lines were messed up. 
 I imported the csv and the Excel does have a different format for me. It's important to use Data -> Import in Excel and don't just open the CSV. See if this is any better: 
 pf.zip

Paul · Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 Are you also using a MAC? I'm wondering if the problem relates to these carriage return and line feeds? 
 
 Excel sees these as an instruction to move to a new line. Can you open the CSV in Notepad++ and turn on the view to see all characters, then share a screenshot: 
 
 Maybe when you send the file to me these are getting added. I've seen problems like this going from a MAC to Windows. So try zipping up the CSV and email the zip to me as opposed to putting it into your fileshare repository.

Paul · Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 I tested the excel file based on the sample csv you provided. This looks fine to me: 
 PF_test.zip 
 I can't comment on the Excel files you sent me as they are different to the example CSV you sent me. Certainly they seem to be in the format I was getting before I changed my regional settings so perhaps you have a problem with the conversion to Excel and so started off wrong? 
 Another problem I can see is that I have no idea how to get the Excel file back into the CSV format you need. I think that if your customer can't get you proper source files (html or xml as opposed to a CSV export that looks like this) then your best bet is to work on Excel and leave it to your customer to get the files back into his system.

Paul · Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 Sarah Ianieri said: Can you please tell me what you did in the english version? So I will try to do the samem and see the result. 
 All I did was translate the IT version in Studio, then save the target. That's it. 
 If I take the sdlxliff you sent me and save target, or save source, then the format is completely wrong as you noted. But the IT excel file you provided is also wrong... so I think you started with the wrong file. If you make sure it's been handled as intended first (make sure the source excel is one record per line) then you should be able to pre-translate it from your TM quite quickly and then save the target correctly.

Paul · Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 Yes: 
 
 Just add a segmentation rule to break on a line feed:

Paul · Answer

Sarah Ianieri 
 No, as a placeholder. But also note it's too late if you are making the change in your project settings as you have already prepared the file. Do it in File -> Options and prepare the project again.

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managing a .csv file exported from a website

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