Jack Corrigall 

Jack Corrigall said:

.odt, .docx, .rtf, .pdf, .txt, .html, .epub

Any of these will be fine although txt and html will not allow you to easily get the translation back, and both odt and docx will likely lose some formatting and possibly even features if the Google Doc is heavily customised:

.odt, .docx, .txt, .html

I discounted RTF, PDF and epub as they would not be ideal formats to work with.  But the others should be fine... I have no idea why html didn't work for you.

Jack Corrigall said:

I still lose all of these interactive elements and it looks significantly different (same as saving in Word).

That will be a problem I think as these are probably features not supported by Word.

I guess you could try working with this app: https://appstore.rws.com/Plugin/51?tab=documentation

I haven't used it in a very long time but there is an article here to give you some idea of how to work with it: https://multifarious.filkin.com/2012/11/21/t-window/

Written 12 years ago but it may be helpful and it would allow you to use your TMs at least and work in any application you like.  So in theory you could translate a Google Doc file by opening it up in Google Drive directly.  From memory it may be a little finnicky at first but once you get a rhythm going it's not bad.

 Jack Corrigall 

Jack Corrigall said:

.odt, .docx, .rtf, .pdf, .txt, .html, .epub

Any of these will be fine although txt and html will not allow you to easily get the translation back, and both odt and docx will likely lose some formatting and possibly even features if the Google Doc is heavily customised:

.odt, .docx, .txt, .html

I discounted RTF, PDF and epub as they would not be ideal formats to work with.  But the others should be fine... I have no idea why html didn't work for you.

Jack Corrigall said:

I still lose all of these interactive elements and it looks significantly different (same as saving in Word).

That will be a problem I think as these are probably features not supported by Word.

I guess you could try working with this app: https://appstore.rws.com/Plugin/51?tab=documentation

I haven't used it in a very long time but there is an article here to give you some idea of how to work with it: https://multifarious.filkin.com/2012/11/21/t-window/

Written 12 years ago but it may be helpful and it would allow you to use your TMs at least and work in any application you like.  So in theory you could translate a Google Doc file by opening it up in Google Drive directly.  From memory it may be a little finnicky at first but once you get a rhythm going it's not bad.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your quick and detailed response, not that this comes as a surprise.

Translation works as an html but all the interactive formatting elements disappear in this format too. The client wants to retain these.

I was not aware of the app, so thanks for making me aware of that. I had a go at it, but am I right in thinking it is not possible to incorporate MultiTerm glossaries into this? That is pretty essential for my QA and perhaps the main reason I'm still using Trados after 14 years.

It might be an idea for RWS to have a look at a long-term solution for integrating shared doc format types into the Trados translation environment, as the amount of projects I receive via Google-Docs etc. is increasing all the time. I have a strong feeling saving individual files on my computer might soon be regarded with the same incredulity as a record collection.

Thanks for this and your help over the years.

Jack