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Is it possible to automatically delete the invisible double spaces at the end of a segment?

Ineke Kuiper

Is there a setting that makes it possible to automatically change double spaces at the end of a segment into single spaces? These spaces are not shown in the segment itself, so I cannot do so while translating. They are in the source document, since this seems to be customary in US texts, but in Dutch, we use only one space.

Of course I can do a search and replace, but I cannot do so automatically, since there usually are a number of places in my texts where a number of spaces are deleted (if only the people writing these texts would learn how to NOT do that), so I would have to check each double space manually, which can be quite time consuming.  

So it would be so nice if Trados would give me the option to edit the intersegment spaces. Is that possible?
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  • 0

    Unknown said:

    Is there a setting that makes it possible to automatically change double spaces at the end of a segment into single spaces? These spaces are not shown in the segment itself, so I cannot do so while translating.

    Ineke

    These spaces should show up if you enable the display of spaces. To do this, click on the "paragraph icon" in the View part of the ribbon and you will see small dots wherever there is a space.

    I know this problem of double spaces with US texts and it is annoying. On the other hand, I am surprised you still get this because this was a habit in US long time ago and it is disappearing, meaning that younger people do not follow this rule anymore. 

    What I used to do with these texts was to open them in Word before translation and replace all occurrences of "a dot followed by two spaces" by "a dot followed by one space".

    Beste groeten.

    Walter
  • 0 in reply to Walter Blaser

    Walter, thank you for your reply.
    However, making spaces visible (which is a standard setting for me) doesn't do the trick. These double spaces are not shown in Trados. There are NO spaces at the end of my segments in Trados, not one, not two. So I cannot delete anything in Trados.

    Since I am a medical translator, I am not surprised that my texts in general will not be written by the younger generation. I do encounter this problem quite often. And if there is no way to solve this in Trados, my clients will keep the double spaces in the return package I usually have to send them.

    I do not always get the Word files, and even if I do, if I get a package from a cliënt, editing the word files in the source texts doesn't help either.

    I am not looking for a workaround, I have worked around this already for many years.
    I am looking for a solution, and one might expect with all the new versions Trados is promoting, that annoying problems like this one should have been solved.
  • 0 in reply to Walter Blaser
    I have never seen these spaces in Trados. It seems to hide the last spaces in a segment. And if this is a setting, then I am looking for the setting which makes them visible.

    NB: I do see the spaces between words on my screen, they are represented by a dot in the middle between two words. I never see such a space/dot at the end of a segment, while there are always spaces (one or two) between sentences in my target translation. So they must be hidden somewhere.

    I would love to always see them, regardless whether there are one or two, so that I can correct them in the segment.
  • 0 in reply to Ineke Kuiper
    I've been confused here too…

    I think Ineke sees the double spaces only in the translated Word document, not in the Editor.

    The reason is that the original Word document already has those double spaces too.

    If so, (can you confirm that?), I'm not sure if a regex guru may give you a segmentation rule that shows double spaces in Studio after a period.

    ... Jesús Prieto ...
  • 0 in reply to Ineke Kuiper
    Hi Ineke

    Sorry, when I said that you should see these double spaces, it was because I have seen double spaces at the end of a segment. However, this were cases where they have been added.
    In fact, if the double spaces are already in the source document, you will not see the double spaces in the Editor because they are in the hidden formatting between the segments. You can actually see them when you select "All contents" in the Display Filter. You will then see these double spaces between the segments.

    Apart from the workaround to remove them from the source, there might be a way to solve this by modifying the segmentation rules (segment on period followed by two spaces instead of a period followed by one space), but I am not sure whether this will work. I'll need to experiment a bit to find out.
    Maybe some other expert has an idea on how to solve this.

    Walter
  • 0 in reply to Walter Blaser
    Yeah, your method (selecting "All contents" in the Display Filter) is easier than any regex thing.
  • 0 in reply to Walter Blaser
    So where do I find the display filter option? I searched, could not find it.
    And then, can I then only see those double spaces, or edit them too?

    Is it possible in adjusting the segmentation rules using multiple characters then?
    But then the problem might be that often not all sentences are followed by double spaces.
  • 0 in reply to Ineke Kuiper

    Hi Ineke,

    The display filter is in the Review ribbon and you filter on "All Content":

    But I'm not convinced this will help you do anything more than carry out a visual check.  You can edit them and delete a space but it's manual.

    Regards

    Paul

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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  • 0 in reply to Paul
    Thank you, Paul. I couldn't find it, since it was called All segments, now I see that it has a submeny with the option All Content in it.
    I do see it is manual, but still that would make it easier, I can delete them while translating, and I do not have to delete them over and over again when checking the target file, do a search and replace in Trados, generate a new target file, etc.

    It would be nice though if Trados would give the option to add trailing spaces to the segments itself, though.
  • 0 in reply to Ineke Kuiper

    Unknown said:
    couldn't find it, since it was called All segments, now I see that it has a submeny with the option All Content in it.

    Ineke

    "All content" is not a submenu of "All segments", it is one of the many choices offered by the Display Filter. You can access it simply by clicking on the funnel symbol in the status bar and it gives you a lot of choices to restrict what you want to see in the Editor. You can for example temporarily only show the segments that have comments, or tracked changes or all the ones you have not yet confirmed, etc,

    Very useful, mainly for the checking stage after translation.

    Walter
  • 0 in reply to Walter Blaser
    Thank you for explaining Walter, I must admit I had not discovered this option before. But in my version of 2014, in the ribbon, it is not named: display filter, but All Segments. And only when clickin on it to open the dropdown menu I found the option All Content as the alternative. This is why I could not find it. And thus it appears to be a submenu of All Segments. Rather confusing.

    I must say I am pleased to have discovered this, I have informed my colleagues in a Dutch Trados list about this too.
    Now I can edit the double spaces between segments in Trados, and I only have to do it once.
  • 0 in reply to Paul
    My point was, that it is called 'display filter' here, but when searching for that term, I could not find it. It is what it does, not wat it is called, I now understand.

    And yes, I am happy to have found it, it also makes it possible to delete a space in front of a new segment that shouldn't be there. And yes, I understand it is manual, but that is not really a problem, since for files that have the double space between segments in the source file, I can now simply replace them in Trados with search and replace double spaces, making sure I do not delete double spaces that have a function, and the target file I then generate does not contain these double spaces anymore.

    When I finished translating, I prefer to review a file in Word, not in Trados, but I then insert the changes in Trados, so I do not update the Word file at that stage. As said, especially with large documents (I am currently working on 10.000 words), it helps to regenerate the target text after I decided to use another term throughout the text, so that I can edit the rest of the text with the new changes inserted.

    So yes, this is more or less what I was looking for.
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  • 0 in reply to Paul
    My point was, that it is called 'display filter' here, but when searching for that term, I could not find it. It is what it does, not wat it is called, I now understand.

    And yes, I am happy to have found it, it also makes it possible to delete a space in front of a new segment that shouldn't be there. And yes, I understand it is manual, but that is not really a problem, since for files that have the double space between segments in the source file, I can now simply replace them in Trados with search and replace double spaces, making sure I do not delete double spaces that have a function, and the target file I then generate does not contain these double spaces anymore.

    When I finished translating, I prefer to review a file in Word, not in Trados, but I then insert the changes in Trados, so I do not update the Word file at that stage. As said, especially with large documents (I am currently working on 10.000 words), it helps to regenerate the target text after I decided to use another term throughout the text, so that I can edit the rest of the text with the new changes inserted.

    So yes, this is more or less what I was looking for.
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