Your nine days shouldn't be a problem here.

The big problem however is, that you do not tell us a single word about the file format you are trying to translate.

So please start with the details:

• The file type attempted to open, with the FILE TYPE EXTENSION please!
• Where do you suppose to have "open new translation memory" command? From my knowledge of Studio, there is no such command at all...

Please understand, that we need to go systematically. Uninstalling and installing again is not an option at all here. Please try to do the following:

• Take a Word file of your choice, save it in a convenient location in your PC
• Start Studio
• Click on the "Open document" button
• Navigate to the Word document you stored previously
• Chose it and press Open
• In the dialog now appearing chose the source and target language
• Now press the "Create" button and select "New file based TM"
• Give this translation memory a name and chose the location where it shall be stored, then press "Finish"
• Now press OK to open the document
• Once opened, press CTRL+S to save your newly opened document in the working format, which is SDLXLIFF
• Try to translate some sentences, remembering to confirm them
• Check the preview, bearing in mind, that it will work only if you have Office 2007 or Office 2010 installed in your computer

1. I will do as you suggest, tomorrow, now it's getting late for me, and I will let you know.
2. the samples provided for quick start, both by sdl and proz training, are WORD docs, as far as i can see. I have (very unfortunately, because i really don't like it) windows 7, 64 bits.
3. Here is the newTranslationMemory i was talking about:
   
4. Actually I just started studio, clicked on >open document>, clicked on my word document, chose it and pressed open: and what I get is this again "the file type is not supported". Is my software corrupted? I rebooted the computer, and have not had any issues with it, except with sdl and this "reply" button which does not respond to me.

Thank you again

Please don't let me down ! (I feel like a lost case)

I am afraid I will not be able to find any way for you to do this via this forum.

Unfortunately I do not fully understand what do you really try to do.

Please remember the following:

- AutoSuggest dictionaries are, exactly as Translation memories, only available for translation from language A into language B and cannot be used for translating from C to B or from A to C and so on

- Word files may have some tricks inside, so not all of those can be opened without any problems (Studio will tell you what the problem is)

Without any offense meant, I unfortunately have the impression, that you are working in a very chaotic way. This is something you MUST change in the first place.

Start to work systematically.  First create a folder for your jobs in your computer. The best would be to get your hard disk partitioned and place the work folder on the partition D:.

Now let us assume, you do already have a partition D:

Create a folder called "Projects" there. Then create a folder called "Studio resources".

In the folder Projects create a subfolder for the work you want to perform, for example named 20130207 (which is todays date, written backwards). Place the file for translation there.

In the folder Studio ressources create a set of subfolders, calling them TMs, Termbases, ASDs.

In the subfolder TMs create a set of subfolders for your language pairs, for example English-Spanish, English-French and so on. Create exactly the same subfolder structure in the ASDs folder. If you need to divide TMs per customer, insert a subfolder for each customer in the appropriate language pair.
For the Termbases folder you do not need any deeper structure, as the termbases can bi multilingual, so we leave the path as it is.

The structure will now look like this:

d:\projects\20130207\working file.doc
d:\TMs\English-Spanish\customer a\
d:\ASDs\English-Spanish\customer a\
d:\Termbases

If you have any ASDs, place them in the appropriate folder, paying attention to the proper language pair. Check http://www.translationzone.com/en/openexchange/ for additional ASDs and Termbases - you may very well find there some in your language pairs.

Start Studio. Chose "Open Documen". Select the Word file in d:\projects\20130207\working file.doc
After you've chosen the file, you will see this screen:

Select the language pair you need and press this button

chose New TM:

Enter the desired name and use the path specified before:

Press Finish

If you have an ASD for this language pair, press Advanced now:

Make sure you see this (you can open the items by pressing the small + sign beside them):

Use the Add button to add the ASDs you stored previously in d:\ASDs\English-Spanish\customer a\

If you have Termbases, open the All Language Pairs item in that very screen, click on Termbases and add them there.

Now click OK to close and once again OK to open the file. This should give you the ability to work with your file as desired.

jczopik,

first thanks for your extended effort to help me.

I did as you said, everything worked fine until clicking on the ASD I had stored in d:\ASDs\English-Spanish\customer a\:

It DOES NOT OPEN, i mean: I unzipped the file, but "eu-tm-en-fr-en-us-fr.bpm" , when I click on the "eu-tm-en-fr-en-us-fr" folder and then "open" :

gives me this result below (the same result I get when I try to open PROZ,COM WEBINAR word.doc) :

"THE FILE TYPE IS NOT SUPPORTED". I'm sorry. This is where I'm stuck now. I wish I knew what I'm doing wrong. Your explanations were very clear, the same I find SDL quick-guide and Proz.com Getting started are very easy to understand, but at one point or other, I get blocked.

 I did this on a Win XP laptop, I still have 10 GB of free space, I use Office 2000 but which gives me no issue whatsoever with my clients, whether Excel or Word, (I have one in UK who works withTrados and wishes I did too). I believe they use Office 2010 and my computer just converts their files, no problem.

So I don't know. I realize I must probably look chaotic here, i certainly feel that way, but I'm actually known as quite organized on my computer. I usually find whatever i'm looking for pretty fast.

I can't believe i'm the only one that gets these FILE TYPE NOT SUPPORTED".

I can't believe no one can help me. Thanks again !

Hello Paul,

Please check my answer to Jerzy's extended response to me. I got stuck once again, but each time at a different stage of the process with :FILE TYPE NOT SUPPORTED". I will accept your help if you're still willing. Maybe over the week-end? I'm just totally drained now. And I need to review first where things are going wrong for me and try to list them.

Thanks

Evelyne

Hi Evelyne,

"I use Office 2000"

This is the answer to your problem of opening *.doc files.  Studio 2011 will convert every DOC you open into DOCX in the background using MS Word. Office 2000 can not save DOCX files.

So for opening DOC files in Studio you need at least Office 2003 with Compatibility Pack installed.

You will however be able to open DOCX in your Studio, as it does not use Word in the background.

As for your BPM file, you don't open AutoSuggest dictionaries using the "Open Document" command.

The correct way to do it is like this: producthelp.sdl.com/.../Add_Phrase_Mapping_Bilingual_File.htm

Cheers,

Luis

Hi there

Luis has already pointed that out: AutoSuggest dictionaries, Translation Memories and Termbases are not the files you do OPEN. These are "added", which is fairly a different command.

ebardoul said:

Hello Paul,

Please check my answer to Jerzy's extended response to me. I got stuck once again, but each time at a different stage of the process with :FILE TYPE NOT SUPPORTED". I will accept your help if you're still willing. Maybe over the week-end? I'm just totally drained now. And I need to review first where things are going wrong for me and try to list them.

Thanks

Evelyne

Hi Evelyne,

Unfortunately I'm at the airport and about to start a long haul back to Europe so this weekend is out I'm afraid. But if you can make time first thing Monday I'll happily clear the decks and help you through this.  I'm sure that once you have done this once or twice you'll wonder what all the problems were!

Regards

Paul

Wonderful, Yes I'll be available Monday, before 0900 and anytime after 1330 EST. Does that works for you? Otherwise I will make myself more available

One quick question about re-installing (I have 2 computers/licences) : The software automatically installs SDL Multiterm, Passolo and Studio 2011 under "my documents" : THAT DOESN'T SUIT ME because I like my tree to be very basic, and now I have three more sbfolders in it?

May I move them from there and place them together in a unique subfolder, whether under "My documents" or elsewhere? Or will that jeopardize the paths the software needs to be able to work?

Paul thank you so much for your empathy and help. I will do my best not to make you lose your time and be ready for this :)

Sincerely,

Evelyne

The folders are there, but you may use any folder of your desire.

There is just one file which will be kept in "My documents" - this is the projects file, which has the only purpose of listing the projects (this means files you open in Studio or projects you create there) and to keep some settings. So you may simply forget about all these folders.

If you already have a decent folder and file structure, keep it by any means, but keep it lean.

A decent file and folder structure is a crucial point to our work, which is widely underestimated.

Great ! Thanks for you answer. I must say I finally managed to bypass the Proz.com sample.doc blockage by saving it in  a .rtf format, ans that allowed me to go nearly to the end of the process, except that after selecting the termbase, I had FIVE languages instead of 2, and I didn't see how to remove them, and then of course when i closed with ok,and ok again, the software rejected it. Now when I click on Open Document, the sample file appears... and I can't move from here.

Anyways, thanks for your advice, every bit helps!

Could you please enlighten me and explain a bit more on "Now when I click on Open Document, the sample file appears... and I can't move from here."?

You can find numerous samples here http://ecolore.leeds.ac.uk/ - try to find a docx file there.

A termbase may contain two, three or more languages - that is fine so and by definition ok. So you do not need to remove any if you need just two - Studio will use the two languages from the termbase, which are defined in your project.

Could you please enlighten me and explain a bit more on "Now when I click on Open Document, the sample file appears... and I can't move from here."?

You can find numerous samples here http://ecolore.leeds.ac.uk/ - try to find a docx file there.

A termbase may contain two, three or more languages - that is fine so and by definition ok. So you do not need to remove any if you need just two - Studio will use the two languages from the termbase, which are defined in your project.

Thank you !

You're an angel to bear with me. I feel terrible !

Follow the steps in the description. Then everything should work.

Imagine you are learning to ride a bicycle, as you did when you were a child.

The first attempts may not be gone very well, but at a certain point you grasped how to maintain balance and move forward in one step. Studio is very similar - you need to go step by step applying patience and observing action and reaction, taking your conclusions from there. If something goes wrong, remember what and where you have done and repeat the steps until the one before last, before it went wrong, and take a different action now, making sure to remember what you have done where and what the software told you. Unfortunately and exactly as with the bicycle there is no way someone else can learn that for you - this is an individual experience, which must be made by the very person, who wants to ride a bicycle or to use Studio :)

 Dear jczopik I got this far before it blocked, do I leave those 5 indexes? If not, how do I remove the ones I don?t want, please ?

Thank you

You leave them as they are. From this screenshot I cannot tell, what are the languages you now attempt to translate, as you already have attempted to translate English-German, Spanish-French. English US-French and English UK-French.

Maybe it would have been a good idea to stick to one language pair for the beginning.

But once again - a termbase may have many languages by default and this should not really bother you.

What bothers me however very much, is your lack of discipline. No offense meant - really. But you do all this actions in a very chaotic way.

So my suggestion would be to start again wit no termbase and auto suggest.

Just try to open a Word file, use a Translation memory and see what happens. When you are already familiar with the concept of TM and confirming sentences, open another Word file and add an ASD. Check what happens now.

As soon you understand what the AutoSugest proces does, take a next Word file and now use TM, ASD and termbase - once again check the influence of each resource to get a feeling for those.

It is similar to learning to drive: 1st gear first, then let the clutch come and now hopefully no one stays around...

Honestly, you do yourself a favour if you take your time. Forcing things will bring you no luck in learning.

Please make a break for now and start again after the weekend.

Hi !

I have finally accessed ecolore, just downloaded some files, will use later. Thanks for that.

I have also finally managed to saved into docx the famous proz sample and some other of my short translations and can finally get some practise with those. Yahoooo!! THIS WAS THE PROBLEM !

Since installation went so easily, I didn't read the installation guide very closely nor see the note about word 2000 and excel 2003 or didn't pay attention. I feel this point should be made a little more obvious than it is. I like my word 2000 and have had no problem with any of my clients because of it. So I had no clue this could be the issue! I'm really happy you pointed this out to me.

I still can't seem to be able to either load or use auto-suggest and TMs, but at least I've got a starting point. I count on my webex with Paul to figure out why not.

I understand the order in which we organize our subfolders is superimportant, right from the beginning. Thanks for insisting on this and giving me your tree model. I still don't understand excatly how it all works and is interlinked. But I'm sure that will be cleared somewhat more with Paul. From what I understand, it has to be organized according to our own logic right from the beginning, because after that no changes can be made

So many thanks for your time and your help, it was really useful !

Évelyne

Hi

Just saw this. I understand your view: I still don't understand how the termbase works, and I've gone through the SDL quick-guide (EN-GE), and tried to used my own documents (EN-us-FR and EN-uk-FR and SP-FR). Can I,  and should I, erase all the ones I created? To start anew ?

The ASDs I have on my computer are the EN-FR and EN-SP (EU) which I downloaded from the free apps on SDL ressources, and the EN-US_DE-DE and EN-US_FR-FR, which come with the webinar samples and Studio 2011 download.

My question : can I use the ASD provided by the webinar and the SDL sample project outside of those samples? ie with my own word documents, or not? Are they just made to use with the samples, or does their use goes beyond that? Perhaps my question shows how little I understand, but that's exactly the point :) !

Thanks again for your time and answers !