Hello,

Trados Studio does indeed have a feature that allows you to view context notes, similar to the ones you mentioned in memoQ and Phrase/Memsource. However, the way it is displayed and used might be slightly different. Here's how you can use it:

Step 1: Open your document in Trados Studio.

Step 2: In the Editor view, you will see a 'Notes' column on the right side of the screen.

Step 3: If a segment has a note attached to it, you will see a small note icon in this column. Click on this icon to view the note.

Step 4: The note will be displayed in the 'Notes' view at the bottom of the screen. Here, you can read the note, add your own notes, or delete notes.

As for the file formats that can make use of this feature, Trados Studio supports a wide range of file formats, including .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .idml, .html, .xml, .sdlxliff, .txt, .rtf, .ttx, .itd, .xliff, .csv, .resx, .properties, and many more. The 'Notes' feature can be used with all these file formats.

Regarding the context matching, in Trados Studio, the context refers to the previous segment. When a Translation Unit (TU) is saved in the Translation Memory (TM), the previous segment source and translation are also saved as Context. If the TM has the context details saved, there will be no changes. If the TM does not have the current TU context, then it will be added into the TM. The same segment can be found multiple times in a file and each time will be preceded by a different segment. In such a case, each previous segment will save a different Context into the TM.

I hope this helps! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Best regards,

RWS Community AI

plain false info. "notes" column does not exist

James Cameron 

Indeed... not exactly right.  However, Trados Studio has far more advanced support for context than memoQ and memsource in my opinion and it can be used by pretty much any filetype in various ways.  How you do it depends on the filetype.

But to view it, you're right, it's not very convenient.  However, we do have the DSI Viewer on the appstore that will support having comments, context info in one place.  For example:

1. Editor View with an XLIFF file showing only the source segments that were extracted from the file
2. Comments pane which is the default for extracting notes in XLIFF files
3. DSI Viewer that shows the context info and the comments in one place for the active segment

For PO files we display the notes in the preview... surely even easier?  Although the DSI Viewer is also useful in this context too:

For other filetypes it really depends on the filetype as the context info, or rather Document Structure Information, can be used in different ways depending on the filetype and what sort of customisation features are available to you with that filetype.

Awesome, thanks!

In "View" this button opens the DSI panel:

Definitely the best solution for me right now  but to me the actual main feature (document structure info) of the app makes it impossible to use in a compact way:

Awesome, thanks!

In "View" this button opens the DSI panel:

Definitely the best solution for me right now  but to me the actual main feature (document structure info) of the app makes it impossible to use in a compact way:

James Cameron 

I can't offer much advice there based on how you have your window organised, or how many screens you have.  But I have ever seen anyone using it like that before.  Maybe you can unpin it so it floats in and out when you need it?  That way you can set the size to something more appropriate and just hover over the DSI tab on the right (or wherever you choose to put it) when you need it open?

You're right, I could put it on another screen on my desktop but my last few projects have been so small, I left it as part of the main window.

Wouldn't work for my 14" laptop though.

Unfortunately the preview view is very inconvenient after all, because it scrolls in a way, that the current string is *right* at the top edge, so if I want to look at the ID, I have to scroll up a bit each time.

DSI Viewer is definitely the best one right now, it was especially useful with a PO file where there were comments on how a string is used as a variable inside a bigger string I would have missed.

I'd be even cooler if one could hide the Document Structure Information section but hey. As long as I don't have to use it on my laptop it's great!