Set up the Editor

Learn how to leverage user settings in the Smartcat Editor to automate tasks, enhance your work comfort, configure automatic translations, manage auto-propagation of repetitions, and set segment confirmations.

User settings allow you to automate work in the Editor to improve the process of working with segments that have been translated previously. To open user settings click on the hamburger menu at the top-right corner.

Your settings will work only for you and apply to all the projects you work with. You can change the settings at any time.

View Options

To work comfortably you can set up your own Editor view.

  • Translation mode. Here you can choose how the translation will be rendered for your website visitors. 

  • Compact mode. Minimum menus and panels. 

  • Show segment borders. Each segment will be surrounded by a thin borderline for simpler text scanning. 

  • Alternate row colors. Every second row will have a dadker color. 

  • Automatically show source and target preview. The target preview will be displayed next to the translation if available. 

Automatic Translation Insertion

When working with a text, you can insert translation memory matches, machine translations, or original text into segments.

But you can configure the system so that as you move to each new segment that is not yet translated, the best match from the TM, machine translation, or the source text is automatically inserted.

Note that a translation will be applied only if the target field of the segment is empty when you place the cursor in it.

Automatic insertion is set up by selecting rules. Check the boxes next to the rules which you want to apply. As you move to each new segment, the system executes the rules you selected one after another until one of them succeeds.

If you want the system to copy the source of segments which contain only digits and non-alphabetic characters into the target (for example, arithmetic operators, the paragraph symbol and percentage symbol, etc.), enable the rule Copy the source text containing only numbers and non-alphabetic characters into target. You can specify that the system must confirm such segments right away.

To configure the system for automatically inserting TM matches, enable the rule Insert translation memory matches no less than X% and specify starting from what match (in percentages) an entry of the translation memory should be inserted.

You can also check the Confirm matches that are 100% and higher box to confirm a TM match after insertion. Even if you don't like the inserted translation, you will be able to correct it and confirm it again.

If you use machine translation in your project, we suggest you enable the rule Insert MT output. Then, the system will insert machine translation into segments for which no matches from the translation memory have been found, and this rule will be in effect on all projects for which machine translation is enabled.

You can also use the Copy the source text to the target segment rule, so the system copies the original text into a segment that has neither TM match nor MT output.

After configuring translation insertion, press the Save button.

Auto-Propagation of Repetitions

In most cases, repeated segments are translated in the same way, but, depending on the context, they may require different translations.

To automate your work with repetitions, you can set up auto-propagation. Then, after you confirm a segment, the translation will be automatically copied to all its instances within the document.

To enable the automatic insertion of translations into repeated segments, check the Auto-propagate repetitions box and specify is you want the repetitions to be propagated from the beginning of a text, or only from the current segment to the end of the document.

The Propagate to segments with differences in case option allows you to auto-propagate repetitions when the text in the target differs from source by case.

If you enable the Propagate to confirmed segments option, the translation will be copied into segments with repetitions even if they have already been confirmed. Otherwise, the system will insert translations only into unconfirmed segments.

Use the Confirm auto-propagated segments option if you want the system to immediately confirm the propagated translations.

Note that the auto-propagation settings will be applied to all of your projects and accounts. If you work in a corporate account, the manager can configure the auto-propagation settings for the project. In this case, you cannot change the settings.

After configuring auto-propagation, press the Save button.

You'll see an arrow icon to the left of each segment that is repeated within a document.

If you want to exclude a segment from repetitions, click the arrow icon to its left. Thus, the target won't propagate to segments with the same source. Changes made to segments with the same source will not apply to the excluded segment.

Segment Confirmation

By default, the system moves the focus to the next segment when you confirm a segment. As an option, you can set to go to the next unconfirmed segment.