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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
    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.
  • 0 in reply to Ineke Kuiper

    Ineke

    The function is named "Display Filter" as you can see here.

    .. and it is a very important and useful basic feature of Studio.

    The icon "All  segments" is just a part of the function, it opens the drop-down list with all the predefined choices for the Display Filter. The other 4 icons in the ribbon section as well as the field for the search criterion all belong to this function.

    Walter
  • 0 in reply to Walter Blaser
    Thank you, Walter, only now I see what you mean.
    I guess for me it would have been more logical if these names were put in the top of the field, not at the bottom.
  • 0 in reply to Paul
    I have the same problem here: Many US-English texts are written with double spaces between sentences. There doesn't seem to be any way to fix this from within Studio. Paul's suggestion doesn't seem to do the job neither. So, if the client wants a return package delivered, the target files in the package have all those double spaces in them, which is not acceptable in German. Consequently, on top of the return package, I have to deliver separate Word target files (German) with those double spaces manually removed. (And I have to advise the client not to use the target files from the package.) Very cumbersome, and for the client as well, since they cannot use the target files from the package...
  • 0 in reply to Klaus Lauble
    They only option would then be that the client removes the double spaces in the source files before they create a package.
    If they are not willing to do so, then it will not be possible to create a return package without the double spaces.
  • 0 in reply to Ineke Kuiper
    Ineke, I am completely with you that SDL Trados Studio should offer a solid solution, not a workaround, to this common issue.
    @Walter: This is not a rare problem, many people are facing it, and Ineke is right, the spaces are not shown and are not editable in the Studio Editor.

    In my opinion, the "Answered" status of this thread should be reverted to "Open" or "Pending" (or whatever the tag for unsolved issues is called) until this has been solved in a bug fix to Studio.
  • 0 in reply to Klaus Lauble
    I completely disagree that this is a bug in Studio. It's definitely not! Studio is faithfully reproducing the style of the source document. The verified answer was presumably marked up by whoever asked the question, so I think that's ok too. If it doesn't answer the problem for you then opening another thread would be simple enough.

    However, I do think a solution could be found and this would be an enhancement. If SDL don't make this an option perhaps something through the AppStore, but it's not a bug.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

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  • 0 in reply to Paul

    I tried using the All Content option, also showing the parts between segments, but they show one space, not too. And that space therefore cannot be deleted by searching for double spaces and replacing it with one space, so I would then have to delete all of these single in-between-segments spaces manually. And this is undoable. It is then less work to open the target files and delete the double spaces there, unless the file is of bad formatting quality, meaning that the source file already contains many spaces instead of tabs, for instances for underlining parts where something has to be entered later, by the user of the end product.

    Next to that, I then also delete all the unnecessary spaces before a return.
    It would be nice it that could be done automatically too.

    The problem would be solved if there would not be any in-between-segment-characters, including spaces.
    I for one would not mind if the return would be part of the segment. It would make it a lot easier to edit them too.
    If only in-between-segments-code would stay hidden (but made visible with 'all content') it would be an improvement, I guess.
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  • 0 in reply to Paul

    I tried using the All Content option, also showing the parts between segments, but they show one space, not too. And that space therefore cannot be deleted by searching for double spaces and replacing it with one space, so I would then have to delete all of these single in-between-segments spaces manually. And this is undoable. It is then less work to open the target files and delete the double spaces there, unless the file is of bad formatting quality, meaning that the source file already contains many spaces instead of tabs, for instances for underlining parts where something has to be entered later, by the user of the end product.

    Next to that, I then also delete all the unnecessary spaces before a return.
    It would be nice it that could be done automatically too.

    The problem would be solved if there would not be any in-between-segment-characters, including spaces.
    I for one would not mind if the return would be part of the segment. It would make it a lot easier to edit them too.
    If only in-between-segments-code would stay hidden (but made visible with 'all content') it would be an improvement, I guess.
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