Number Formatting

Question

Hello, 
 do you know where I can find the settings for number formatting under Studio 2014? 
 We need it for decimals and digit grouping symbols . This is a language specific setting (space, dots, nothing?). There are also cases in which a language has it in different manners (or the client just wants it differently). This is why we need to change this. I cannot find this setting.Thank you for your help. 
 
 Regards, 
 Miriam

Fasil Aziz · Answer

Hi Miriam 
 These settings are not controlled by Studio but rather Studio picks these up from the 'Region and Language' settings in Windows. You can access this by going to: Control Panel\Region and Language: 
 
 If you want to make any adjustments to the default settings you will need to do it here and then restart Studio for the settings to take effect.

Paul Filkin · Answer

Have you tried changing the settings in Studio? Under your specific language pair:

Paul Filkin · Answer

What language pair and some example text please?

Paul Filkin · Answer

I tested in W8.1 as I don't have W10 and in there I can change the regional settings for digital groupings to a space and Studio respects it: 
 
 Will ask someone in the team to test this with W10 and see if they have a problem or not.

Paul Filkin · Answer

Having said that autopropagation doesn't work at all well when I do this: 
 
 Compared to the defaults which perform correctly: 
 
 I guess the customisation of regional settings isn't such a good idea anymore. Not sure how well it worked in the past but clearly there is a problem here. I think the best solution has to be to support more control over how numbers are handled rather than rely on the windows settings, but this isn't going to be anything we see soon. 
 Maybe go and vote for this one which covers the same topic I think: 
 https://community.sdl.com/solutions/language/translationproductivity/translation-productivity-ideas/i/trados-studio-ideas/autolocalisation-of-numbers

Paul Filkin · Answer

Hi Paul Carmichael , 
 
Evzen already asked you a question about this. But I think if you provide a proper example of the source you get and the target you want then it will be far easier to provide a sensible answer.

Paul Filkin · Answer

Unknown said: It's quite simple: Trados changes 1.234,56 to 1,234.56. That is no good. It should be 1234.56 or for numbers with more digits, there should be thousands separators of a non-breaking space. It is THE international standard and REQUIRED by all my clients. 
 Hi Paul Carmichael 
 Quite interesting but not anything I've seen before. I get it when the four digits relate to a date, 2017, 1999 etc. but I think it becomes very unclear and must only be used by very few people in other situations. At least 20 years as a Civil Engineer and I've never seen this, nor would I have accepted its use. 
 However, all that is irrelevant if this is what your client wants! 
 I suggest you allow Studio to do what it wants and then search and replace the target numbers afterwards using regular expressions to get what you want. Or use the regex autosuggest provider to do it on the fly as you work... although I'd do it afterwards so you can more easily QA check to make sure your numbers are correct etc. 
 If you want a better solution then please suggest it in the ideas site as there is no other way it'll happen - http://ideas.sdl.com 
 Regards 
 Paul

Paul Filkin · Answer

Unknown said: Seems a strange question, given that I wrote " If you look at any international (recent) standard, the numbers will be in the format I just mentioned. It is a worldwide standard. Has been for quite a while." Everybody uses this standard. It was decided ages ago to completely ban thousands separators of anything other than a space. Either a comma or a dot can be used for decimal, but a dot is preferred. I'm flabbergasted that anyone in this industry wouldn't know this. 
 I guess what really matters here is what you want, and not what the standard is (whether this is what everyone uses or not). Studio draws it's language settings from your computer operating system. An example of the sort of thing this means would be here (this is actually out of date now and is only W7 but the settings have not changed much): 
 https://www.microsoft.com/resources/msdn/goglobal/default.mspx?submitted=0809&OS=Windows%207 
 Looking at Oracle we see something similar: 
 https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19455-01/806-0169/overview-9/index.html 
 I don't know how old that is, but it's clear that it's still quite normal to handle numbers in this way. 
 One thing I would agree with Bruce on is that we should support a more flexible way to handle numbers. I've wanted this for a long time, and this is because it doesn't matter at all what the standards are, it only matters what your client expects to see, and what you have been given in the source. We're not here to judge the way documentation is put together. But we don't have it right now so I'm trying to be honest and helpful with you so you can handle the task you have been given. There's no point in me doing anything else. That's why I wondered about your response. 
 In my opinion the best approach when faced with something like this is the following: 
 
 Let Studio do what it wants as long as the numbers are being transposed correctly (forget the formatting for now). This way you get accuracy where it's most important and consistency 
 Once the job is complete run a search and replace on the numbers across your project using something like the sdlxliff toolkit which lets you tackle the whole project in one go https://multifarious.filkin.com/2017/01/14/revisiting-the-toolkit/ 
 
 Then submit your idea, or vote for the ones already there. The only way things will change is if enough people make their voice heard where it counts.

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Number Formatting