Olga Anissimova

Given it's off by default I'm assuming you didn't turn it on.  If you're working on a project package perhaps this has been disabled by whoever created the project?

This is the project that I have created. In my Trados, tag protection is ALWAYS activated by default. It does not allow me to delete any tags in any source texts. And this is really frustrating. I need to turn it off somehow. I would prefer it not being there at all :).

Olga Anissimova

Olga Anissimova said:

It does not allow me to delete any tags in any source texts.

ok - that's an important piece of information.  You cannot edit source tag at all.  If this is your problem I think you need to check a couple of things:

1. what tags are they?  If it's a PDF poorly prepared then you should consider looking at the source file and prepare it properly prior to translation.  If it's not a PDF why do you want to remove them?  They may be necessary for the target as well.
2. notwithstanding the above, if you think of your TM as a database for things you've translated before as well as an important linguistic asset, then it makes sesne not to remove them anyway.  If you get the same file again in the future and you'd removed the tags then you'll have to go through the same process all over again, whereas you'd just get a 100% match if you left them.

It does not really matter what reasons a user might have for needing to delete source file tags. I just think that the option of switching tag protection off altogether should be definitely provided by the programme developer in the future. This is the only feature that has always irritated me in Trados. Switching from SDL 2017 to SDL 2021, I really hoped this issue would have been resolved... But no, the developers still presume they know better :)

Olga Anissimova

Olga Anissimova said:

It does not really matter what reasons a user might have for needing to delete source file tags.

Actually I think it does because users sometimes presume they know better ;-)  Often they do of course so I'm not discounting it, but in general the purpose of a CAT is to reproduce the source, not rewrite it.

You do have a few solutions though if cleaning the source isn't an option for you?

1. open the file for translation
2. copy source to target
3. delete your tags
4. save the target
5. translate that file

Advantage being you'll find out before you do a load of work whether the tags were needed or not.

You could also try using this tool from the appstore:

https://appstore.sdl.com/language/app/cleanup-tasks/963/

That will allow you to identify the types of tags you don't need and remove across the entire file in one go.

Olga Anissimova

Olga Anissimova said:

It does not really matter what reasons a user might have for needing to delete source file tags.

Actually I think it does because users sometimes presume they know better ;-)  Often they do of course so I'm not discounting it, but in general the purpose of a CAT is to reproduce the source, not rewrite it.

You do have a few solutions though if cleaning the source isn't an option for you?

1. open the file for translation
2. copy source to target
3. delete your tags
4. save the target
5. translate that file

Advantage being you'll find out before you do a load of work whether the tags were needed or not.

You could also try using this tool from the appstore:

https://appstore.sdl.com/language/app/cleanup-tasks/963/

That will allow you to identify the types of tags you don't need and remove across the entire file in one go.

Thanks a lot for the tips! They make a lot sense :). I will definitely use them.