Hello,

I have a customer (an agency) who sends me almost everyday huge excel files with source text to translate. The volume of the source text varies from day to day. It can go from 45 words to 9.000 words approximately.

I handle two language pairs, which means I have to produce 2 TMs in tmx format at the end + the two different excel files with the target translations.

I have to say at this stage that I definitely consider that the solution to my problem, which basically aims at gaining productivity, should be found ideally by my agency. I often addressed the issue and even suggested he contacts a SDL consultant for help but to no avail. I think the source doc shall be prepped differently so all translator involved win some time - and money.

I gave up changing them but I really need to find a way to win some time because I am not being paid for the prep work, which of course, is not normal. I cannot afford to loose this agency though. I have been working for them for years.

I had participated to the last Spring Trados Virtual Conference back in May and especially to the technical Q&A and asked the same question. I received an answer which I tested and worked well, but I did not have the time to write it down at the time. Sometimes in August, I had to reinstall and lost the parameters I had changed. I remember the host of the virtual conference telling me he would put everything online. I tried to find the infos again bu to no avail. It seems the information is not available online anymore.

So here are the facts : I receive a source file in xlsx format. There are two options: either I get a file with 60 tabs which bear different language pairs, or I get an excel file with one or up to 10 tabs with individual excel charts dispatched on each tab. In this case, the chart has a source text column and on the right a target text column per language pair (there can be up to 60 columns). I consider the first language pair I handle and analyze the nature of the file I received and most especially, of course, of the source text I have to translate. It’s all in one column. Sometimes, in the target text column, some cells are grey, which means it shall not be translated for this language pair. It varies from language pair to language pair.

I will tell you now how I handle the files I get so it gets more practical.

Most of the time, I do translate in the source file so I get things done quicker. I see the source, I see the enclosed pictures for context (they appear in the source excel) and most of all, I see the character count).

I create a new excel file with two columns. I insert therefore a title in column A with the source language pair and a title in column B with the target language pair.

I then go back to the source file and copy and paste all cells I have to translate in column A. It’s a long work. I can make mistake. I have to take care of the grey cells in the source text column... I then copy and paste my translation. Because of the grey cells, some empty cells often appear in the target column of the bilingual file. I realized with time those spaces can have a negative impact when I upload this bilingual excel file in SDL Trados. I try to erase the empty lines before I upload it, which means I will have to copy and paste the target translations afterwards taking good care not to misplace the target translations. At the end, I get a bilingual file which I save with the name TM_name of the original file.xlsx and upload it in SDL. Let’s name it TM file from here on to make things easier.

I then open a new job in SDL Trados. Either I click on New Project (in this case I do have a dedicated project template for each language pair ready) or I click on Translate a single document, depending on my mood ! I tend to think the second option goes faster if the file is small... Most of the time, I am only interested in the TM export since I have already finished the target file in the source file directly.

Sometimes, I do translate the whole thing in SDL Trados, which means I use the TM file with an empty target column. But in this case, I have to refer to the source file to get the info about the character count, so I have learned with time that it is a source of problems as well.

Whatever solution I choose, I upload the file as usual, and in the Preferences, I select Project Settings > File Types > Excel Bilingual Files > Common. I upload the TM file, watch the preview and confirm with OK.

I then create a dedicated TM for this file (there is always a validation phase a couple of days later, I might have to make some changes afterwards to my target excel files, they are minimal, but I still need to deliver a clean file and an updated TM then). In this case, I do reopen the excel file, check the amendments made by the validator, update them in my tmx TM file and send the two files back. I prefer to do that in a small tmx file. But I do have a general TM for this customer which gets updated as well.

I then finish up the process until I get the file ready in the Editor.

This is where it gets tricky. Either it goes smoothly and I see the source text and the target text aligned. All is good. I just have to check the character count, make the QA check and save the translations in the TM (I choose the option Batch tasks > Update Main Translation Memories). Although the preview looked normal, I often get an excel file where the source text appear on the left column, as well as the the target file text. To be clear, the source TM file segments appear in the left hand column and in between them appear the target file segments. The right hand column is utterly empty. The left column is all mixed up. Although the apparence of the preview was totally correct. In this case, if the file is small, I just do copy and paste the text on the right side so I get it over with as quickly as possible (as you might have understood by now, time is money).

I validate all segments, I produce the tmx file via export after I have updated the main translation memories and I deliver both files (TM in tmx format and target file), If I had not translated the file in the source file, I produce the TM target file, I copy and paste the content in the target file which is a tricky process because there can be grey cells, different tabs, and so on. I eventually get a clean excel target file, export the tmx and deliver both files. 

I need to add here that I get an updated TM file in TMX format from the agency with each job assignment so I also have to include the import of the updated TM file in my routine. I cannot be sure only I have worked on the TM so I need to make sure I have the latest TM available. Needless to say those TM are not really clean and update (by now, you must have understood my customer only wants a TM for the principle, he does not care what’s in it, nor if it’s clean and tidy).

I think I told it all. I know it’s a lot. I know it should not be my problem. I know that I am spending more time handling the technicalities than translating. It’s been going on for years. I have reached out multiple times to the agency find a solution that is more efficient. I am convinced the other 60 translators working on these projects do feel the same. But how to bring us together without upsetting the agency (I have an idea, but I will need some time to implement it and I lack time right now, I have already wanted to reach out to the community with this matter for years).

So if there is any suggestions on this particular issue, any way of improving the workflow, I would be glad to hear your ideas. I do not exclude reaching out to the agency again (we have very good relations) with a consulting offer if any one of you is interested and consider he has the perfect solution. So you know, I think the whole idea of the Excel Files workflow is based on the fact that the customer (not the agency) can let his validator in each country access the translated files easily, make the necessary changes (the local marketing rules might differ) and send it back for implementation. No validator is able to open a SDL Trados package, nor do they want him to have to go into a bilingual file. It has to be the original source file with the photos, the context, the format... The validator are not computer illiterate (but not far from it I must say).

And when I am finished with it all (sometimes with as little as 45 words), I do the same for the other language pair. There I must say I trick a little. There are few differences between both languages (it’s  basically a kind a localization I must do and a change in the politeness form). I duplicate the target file of the first language pair, I make the necessary changes. I then duplicate the tmx file of the first language pair I have just produced. I change the language pair with the search and replace function throughout the tmx. I make the amendments again manually and I deliver both target and updated tmx.

I am 100% sure there is quicker way to handle things. But I am also very sure the problem lies mostly in the agency’s hands. I would already be very glad to avoid the problem of seeing my translations not appear in the right column when I upload an Excel Bilingual File (and find the solution someone gave me during the virtual conference, it actually worked, I never encountered this problem again!).

I already thank you a lot for your thoughts.

You also need to know that I work with SDL Trados Studio 2021 Freelance (SDL Trados Studio 2021 SR1 - 16.1.4.4184) on my Parallels virtual machine. I do work on a MacBook Air with MacOS Big Sur, version 11.5.2.

Thanks a lot for your help. I am proud of myself. After almost 5 years dealing with this workflow, I have managed to explain it all to you and hope for a solution. Cheers!

Caroline

The source text column has a target text equivalent a couple column further right which bears the title of the target language pair.