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Translate a file with Smartcat

Glossaries and TMs | Smartcat Help Center Learn how to quickly and accurately translate documents and other digital files from one language to another. Smartcat makes it easy for you to translate files in a seconds (less than a minute) thanks to Smartcat AI and OCR technology. You simply need to upload your files to Smartcat and press translate. Smartcat supports more than 80 file types. We have an article dedicated solely to the different file types that we support, which we update every time there is a new one. How to translate a file with Smartcat Let's get into how to translate a file with Smartcat. First, go to your Smartcat workspace and click on the Shortcut “Translate a document.” Next, you'll arrive at the screen where you need to:Choose your source and target languages (you can choose up to 280 languages)Drag and drop or upload your document. Next, select select "Translate files." You'll then see that your file is being processed and translated by Smartcat AI. Next, you will arrive at a screen that presents you with the following options:Preview: this will bring you to the Editor, where you can check out the translation, edit it, verify the quality, and export it.  Hire a linguist: you can choose to get a linguist to review or post-edit it.Download it right away. Translate and edit the file on Smartcat Editor If you want to translate, post-edit, or verify the translation, you can do so in the Smartcat Editor. Learn how to do that in our translation post-editing article. The Smartcat Editor lets you see both columns (source and target languages side by side), which makes tranlsation a lot easier! You can also see the context on the side panel. Hire a linguist If you choose to get professional review of your file, select Get professional review, which will then present a linguist to you via AI sourcing, another propriety and industry-first Smartcat AI feature. The match is based on your content and the linguist's profile (language pairs, expertise, services, etc.). If you don't want the first option, you can select “See all linguists” for other matched linguists or to search for them yourself in the Smartcat Marketplace, which houses 500,000 vetted linguists. Download the file right away You have a few more options if you click on the three dots, which are:Manage projects: You will see a project automatically created with this file included. Projects allow you to manage more than one document, hire linguists, and everything in one overview.Download filesDownload files in PDFReview in Editor And that's how easy it is to translate a file! Uploading and translating files from a project overview If you have ongoing projects, you can also upload a file from your projects on Smartcat. Here, you would click on the upload button. You can also upload as many as you want in one go, i.e. not one-by-one, which saves you time. You can also organize your documents in folders to help organizing them in a clear overview. In this files overview, you can also see the file type listed, the progress of its translation (pre-translated via AI, post-edited, etc.), target language, number of quality assurance errors that you should correct, etc.

Understand Smartwords

What are Smartwords? | Smartcat Help Center Discover what Smartwords are and how they are used for AI translation. "Smartwords" refer to your balance of words for AI translation and translation memory use in Smartcat. They are, essentially, your form of automatic translation “currency” inside Smartcat. What do Smartwords do? Each time you perform an AI translation, Smartcat AI chooses the most appropriate automatic translation engine for you from under the Smartcat hood with the objective of translating with the highest accuracy possible and of minimizing post-editing requirements. Each time you post-edit your translations on Smartcat, it saves your changes to your own private Smartcat “brain”. As a result, you grow your linguistic resources database – translation memories and glossaries – which, in turn, reduces time and cost for human expert review, and your translation quality increases over time. Your Smartwords balance Your Smartwords balance is always in plain view. Simply go to the Smartwords usage tab and choose the time period to see how a breakdown of your Smartwords usage and your remaining balance. With each use of Smartcat AI translation and translation memories, Smartcat automatically reflects the corresponding Smartword usage in your updated Smartwords balance.

Translate your website content

Website content translation | Smartcat Help Center With Smartcat Website Translator you can automatically translate your website into any language on the fly and then, if necessary, adjust the translation, polish it, and bring it to perfection with manual edits. Let's delve into details and see how it's done. Automatic translation To translate your website into any language, proceed as follows: In your browser, open https://www.smartcat.com/website-translator/ an procceed to log in/sign. Skip this step if you are already in your Smartcat account. Select to translate website on your account homepage.  3. Enter the URL of your site to the form above and specify the source ( from ) and target ( into ) languages. You can translate the site to multiple languages, therefore the into field accepts multiple values. 4. Smartcat will create a translation project which you'll be able to find on your Projects page. All the translation options including editing and professional review are available for this project. 5. You can adjust the preview settings using the gear icon at the upright corner of the screen. The available options are:Translation mode. Here you can choose how the translation will be rendered for your website visitors. Language selector. Here you can choose how to locate the language selector to best fit your website design. Preview settings. Here you can select to start the translation of a page as soon as you enter it. Publish settings. Here you can decide which languages to publish. This option comes in handy when your website is being translated to multiple languages and not all of the translations are ready at the same time.  5. When you switch to a new language, the site is rendered in the original language and the Start translation button appears in the toolbar. Click it to have the site translated to another language. Note that your Smartwords balance appears in the toolbar and is instantly updated to keep you aware of any changes. In addition to automatically translating your website, Smartcat allows you to edit the resulting translation and tailor it to a particular vocabulary or cultural and social preferences of the specific target audience. Editing Click the Edit button in the toolbar to open the translation you've just previewed in the Smartcat Editor. After you've made all the required changes in the Smartcat editor, click x in the Editor toolbar above. It redirects you to the website preview that reflects all the recent edits.  Note that the percentage of automatically and manually translated content is shown respectively in the buttons beside the Language field. To publish the translation hit the respective button at the top of your website page. Publishing To publish the translation hit the respective button at the top of your website page. A message will appear informing you that in order to publish the translated version of your website the following script must be added to the website header. Click Copy code to save the code in the buffer. Paste the code to a text file and send the file to your Web designer. Refer to this article for the detailed instructions for a Web designer. As soon as the code has been added, click Validate and continue. Smartcat verifies that the JavaScript snippet appears on each relevant page and publishes all the existing automatic and manual translations. Publishing means that snapshots of each translated page from your website are gathered and stored in a cloud. The embedded script retrieves and displays them. Whenever a visitor accesses your web page and switches to another language, they will not be hitting Smartcat to dynamically download the translations, but they will be getting static snapshots. The Smartcat script injected to your website code not only retrieves and displays all the available translations, but also renders a selector that your site visitors will use to switch to the required language.

Explore Smartcat AI platform functionalities

Smartcat AI functionalities | Smartcat Help Center Introducing Smartcat AI, a cutting-edge translation and localization platform that harnesses the power of advanced AI technology and customizable workflows to revolutionize your translation projects. With Smartcat, you can access a suite of AI Translation features, including standard translation engines, automated OCR for PDFs and images, generative AI translation with terminology control, and AI quality measurement. Smartcat also offers AI-driven workflows for sourcing linguists, project monitoring, and enterprise-compliant procurement, all fully customizable to your specific needs. This comprehensive platform supports resource management, integrations, reporting and analytics, access control, and data security, ensuring a seamless and secure translation process. Whether you're an individual translator, a language service provider, or an enterprise, Smartcat is your ultimate solution for efficient, high-quality translation and localization. Discover Smartcat's functionality below: Smartcat AI AI Translation : Smartcat leverages cutting-edge AI technology to enhance translation capabilities. The AI Translation feature encompasses the following: Standard Translation Engines: Smartcat employs powerful standard translation engines to assist in translating content efficiently and accurately. Automated OCR to Translate PDFs and Images : Easily translate text from PDFs and images with Smartcat's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities, saving you time and effort. Generative AI Translation with Terminology Control: Maintain precise terminology by utilizing generative AI translation with the ability to align with glossaries. Generative AI Translation Customization: Customize AI-generated translations to suit your specific needs and preferences. AI Quality Measurement (Automated Translation Quality Scoring): Ensure translation quality with automated scoring, allowing you to track and improve the quality of your translated content. AI Multimedia Translation : Smartcat offers multimedia translation capabilities, including video/audio transcription, subtitle embedding, and AI voiceovers. Multilingual AI Content Generator : Generate content in multiple languages efficiently and effectively using AI-powered tools. AI Human Workflows Smartcat introduces AI-driven workflows that streamline translation processes and project management: Sourcing of Linguists : Easily find and engage qualified linguists for your projects, ensuring top-notch translation quality. Project Monitoring: Keep a close eye on project progress, milestones, and timelines through intuitive monitoring tools. Enterprise-Compliant Procurement Platform : Smartcat provides an enterprise-compliant procurement platform, making it simple to manage and secure translation resources. Workflow Customization: Enjoy flexibility with customizable workflows tailored to your specific project needs. Smartcat is not limited by your Smartwords Balance, allowing you to adapt workflows to your requirements. Configurable Workflows: Smartcat enables you to configure workflows precisely as needed, optimizing your translation processes. Translator Assignment Templates : Streamline translator assignments with predefined templates, improving efficiency and consistency. Project Templates : Utilize project templates to quickly set up new translation projects with predefined parameters. Branded Custom Portal: Offer predefined translation services to your employees through a branded custom portal, enhancing user experience and accessibility. Linguistic Quality Assurance (Embedded in Workflows) : Ensure linguistic quality assurance is an integral part of your translation workflows, guaranteeing top-quality translations. Enterprise-Compliant Procurement Platform Resource Management : Efficiently manage your translation resources with Smartcat's resource management features. Integrations API Access : Smartcat provides API access for seamless integration with external systems and applications. Standard Integrations: Enjoy out-of-the-box integration options for a smoother workflow. Custom Integrations : If your needs go beyond standard integrations, Smartcat offers custom solutions tailored to your content types and workflows. Reporting & Analytics Standard BI Reports: Access standard Business Intelligence reports for insights into your translation projects. API Access to Data Warehouse : Connect to your data warehouse through API access for in-depth data analysis. Custom Project Properties and Reporting: Customize project properties and reporting to align with your specific requirements. Access Control and Security Single Sign-On (SAML-based SSO) : Enhance security and ease of access with Single Sign-On using SAML-based authentication. Data Security : Prevent linguistic resources from downloading, copying, or retaining data outside of the Smartcat platform, ensuring data security and compliance. Dedicated Customer Success Manager : Benefit from a dedicated Customer Success Manager who will provide support and guidance to optimize your Smartcat experience. Custom MSA (Master Services Agreement): Customize your Master Services Agreement to meet your unique needs. Custom Implementation : Smartcat offers custom implementation services, including needs assessment and deployment by solutions engineers, to optimize all your localization workflows. In summary, Smartcat is a comprehensive platform that caters to a wide range of translation and localization needs, utilizing advanced AI technology and customizable workflows to enhance efficiency and quality. Whether you're an individual translator, a language service provider, or an enterprise, Smartcat provides the tools and services necessary to streamline your translation projects effectively. For detailed information on pricing and subscription plans, please refer to the Smartcat Pricing page. FAQ What languages are supported in Smartcat? You can find a list of supported languages on this page:https://smartcat.ai/Home/LanguagesIt is updated automatically as new languages are added.

Set up pretranslation

Pretranslation setup guide | Smartcat Help Center Pretranlsation rules allow the system to insert TM matches and machine translation into the target text before the work even starts. This significantly speeds up the translation process. Adding Pretranslation Rules Open the Pretranslation tab.Adjust the settings for numbers. If the source text contains a lot of numbers, click Source (Numbers Only) so that all the segments containing only numbers will be copied to the translation. Decimal and thousand separators, in this case, will be converted to match standards of the target language, at least in most cases. The rule for inserting numbers is always the first to execute.  Click Add Rule → Translation Memories to enable automatic insertion of the translations from the existing translation memories and save on editing.  4. Select which TM you want to use from the ones you have enabled on the project. In the Minimum match percentage field, specify the minimum match percentage for a segment in the document and the translation memory at which the system must insert a translation from the TM. You can also specify the Minimum segment count (in words) so the matches must be inserted based on the segment length. This can be useful to eliminate the risk of inserting an improper wording. In the Minimum segment quality you can select to use only reviewed segments to avoid inserting unedited translation. Finally, in the Confirm segments field specify if the system should confirm the inserted translations and at a specific stage. 5. Click Save&Run. The pretranslation rules will be applied to all existing and future documents within a project — so you don’t need to configure them for individual documents. Pro tips If you are sure of the quality of the translations in the applied TM and have set the minimum match percentage at 100%, you can specify that the system must confirm at the translation stage for such matches and have the editor to review such segments. If you have doubts about the quality of the TM units or have set the match threshold below 100%, you should not specify automatic confirmation of such matches since there might be segments required reviewing on the first stage. In this case, matches will be inserted, but the translator will check them, making corrections if necessary, and then manually confirming them. In cases where you have context matches (101% and above), you could even confirm segments for all the stages of your workflow.You can set up separate rules for each TM in a project (if there is more than one). The rules are executed one after the other; therefore, you should set the most reliable translation memory first.You can set more than one rule for each TM: for example, you can have Smartcat first insert 100% matches and confirm them, and then insert matches that are 75% and up, but without confirmation. 

Import and export translation memories

Importing and exporting translation memories | Smartcat Help Center Discover how to import and export translation memories in this short article. How to import a TM for your Smartcat projects At some point, you might want to import a translation memory (TM) that was created outside Smartcat. You can do so quickly and easily, either as a TMX, SDL TM (SDL Studio), or Excel file. Ok, so let's get down to it. Step 1Go to the Linguistic Assets tab, select translation memories, and open the translation memory you need by clicking on its name in the list. Step 2Click Overwrite or Update, depending on which option applies to your specific need. Some notes to keep in mindOverwrite TM — This option will erase all the existing data in your TM and replace it with the data contained in the TM file that you're importing. You can use this option if you have exported the translation data from a previous project and edited it outside Smartcat. This option allows you to know that all your data is up to date. Update TM — With this option, the data that you're importing will be added to already existing translation content held on your TM. Step 3In the dialog box that opens, click Add to select a file to import. Then click Import to start the process. Smartcat will display a message to indicate that the TM overwrite or update is in progress and that you will be notified once it completes or if there are any errors. Top tips for TMX and XLSX file importing Follow these tried-and-tested top tips to optimize your TM import performance. Ensure you have the same language codes as your TMX files It's essential when developing your translation memories to have the same language codes as the TMX file. Without such alignment, adding to a translation memory is not possible. You can add translation languages to a TM in Smartcat. To do so, simply update add the new language pair(s) and update your TM. You can also adjust a TMX file language code by opening it in a text editor and replacing all instances of the language code with the version that you require. Using XLSX files to import TMs The first column of a downloaded XLSX file should contain the source units – one per cell – while any and all subsequent columns should contain translations, one per cell corresponded to the source. The upper cell of each column (language) should contain a language tag. View the full list of language tags here. If a TM unit contains tags, it will look like something like: This is an example of a multilingual string<1>with a <2|hyperlink with <3|bold text|3> inside|2>. where <1> is a self-closing tag, <2| is the opening tag, |2> is its pairing closing tag Also, you may find in a file two additional columns entitled [Context: previous] and [Context: next], which contain the information about one preceding and one following entry. This information is used in Smartcat to track context matches. You can download an existing TM in the XLSX format, which will give you a template. Then paste entries in the template that you want to upload in Smartcat and upload the file as described above. How to export a TM for your Smartcat projects Follow these four simple steps to export a TM in Smartcat. Step 1Go to the Linguistic Assets tab, select translation memories, and open the TM you require by clicking on its name in the list. Step 2:Click Export. Step 3:Choose to either use default export settings or configure settings yourself. These settings enable you to select the exported file format and choose whether to include tags or not. Step 4:Click Export one more time and wait for your file to download. That's it! Now you should know how to import and export TM files for your Smartcat translation projects.

Translate any file in any language with Smartcats AI in 3 steps

AI translation in 3 steps | Smartcat Help Center Your brief 3-step guide to AI-translate any file in any language with Smartcat With Smartcat you can translate hundreds or even thousands of pages in a matter of seconds using Smartcat's AI automatic translation. And your page layout format stays intact too. So a translated PDF file, for instance, will look the same as your original PDF file in the source language. Translate any file in Smartcat in three easy, quick steps Follow these steps to AI-translate any document in Smartcat in a few minutes. Step 1: Log in and start a new translation task Log into your Smartcat account and click Translate a file, as shown below. If you don't have an account yet, create your free trial account in a few seconds. Step 2: Choose languages and upload your documents You are now on the Translate a file settings page, as shown below. I. Choose your language pair - source and target languages II. Upload or drag-and-drop your file(s) III. Click Translate files Step 3: Download, edit, and share your translation Most AI automatic translations on Smartcat take seconds. Once complete, it's up to you what to do next. You have a few options. A. Download your AI translation immediately Download and use it immediately in your preferred file format by clicking on the icon with three dots on the top right. B. Share your translation Share your translation with your own team or external translators by inviting them to work on it via the Share button. Once you click on Share, you will see the following screen, where you can input collaborator email and decide permission privileges. C. Hire a professional editor on Smartcat Marketplace Invite a Smartcat Marketplace linguist in your translation's language pair to review and edit your AI automatic translation. You can choose manually or use AI matching. With AI matching, Smartcat pairs you with a best-match human professional linguist in seconds. You'll then be able to hire subject matter experts from the world's largest vetted marketplace to review and edit your AI automatic translation! With Smartcat AI matching, the hard work's done for you as Smartcat AI pairs you with the top-match linguist in seconds according to your translation requirements! Now you should be able to translate any document on your Smartcat account.

Use glossaries

Utilizing glossaries for projects | Smartcat Help Center In this brief article, we'll look at how you can add a glossary to a translation project in Smartcat. What is a translation glossary? A glossary is an indexed list of terminology specific to the content that you translate. It typically includes terms – specific words and phrases – that your organization uses repeatedly. By including these terms in a preloaded index list – your glossary – you are able to optimize consistency of language and stylistic preferences. Both automatic AI translation engines and human translators can use glossaries to clarify use of the correct, on-brand term. How glossaries work in Smartcat If you enable a glossary on a project, Smartcat automatically suggests the glossary-saved translation term on Smartcat automatic AI translations. You can create and keep separate glossaries for different subjects and clients, and add terms with translations into other languages. Click to learn how to create a glossary here Each time you create a project, you can specify a client or department for it. Smartcat automatically enables the relevant glossary from the list that you have already created in Smartcat for this client or department. Changing glossary settings in Smartcat You can make amendments to glossary settings in the Linguistic assets tab when setting up a new project or editing an existing one. Step one Go to the project Overview page and click on Linguistic assets. Step two In the page that opens, navigate to the glossaries section below. You will see one or more glossaries matching your language pair and your project. Select the glossary or glossaries that you want to enable and click Save. To disable a glossary, simply untick the box to the left in the same row and click Save. FAQ My translators can't add terms to the glossary Generally, linguists are not authorized to add terms to glossaries when they work in a file. They can only suggest new terms that will then need to be approved by an editor or a project manager. It is however possible to assign glossary content editing rights to linguists by creating custom access rights. Unfortunately, at this time a known issues still prevents translators from adding terms from within the editor. A workaround is to have the linguists suggest terms and then access the glossaries to approve these terms since they have access rights to the content.

Manage customized MT engine presets

Customized MT engine presets | Smartcat Help Center The customized MT engine preset is a robust and convenient method for maintaining and managing the credentials of various MT developers. You can add an API key for an MT developer and then use this key to create one or several customized MT engine presets. These presets will be available for addition to the Machine Translation section of the project settings together with the standard MT engine profiles. Adding an API key for an MT developer To add an API key for an MT developer:Log in to Smartcat as an account administrator.Navigate to Settings > Credentials, click Add Credential and select the required MT developer. In the example below, the selected MT developer is Google Advanced Translation.  Enter a meaningful Name, that you will later require to create a customized MT profile.Optionally, enter additional information about the provider to the Comment field.Paste the MT developer's API key to the Service account key field. Note that For Google Advanced Translation the API key is provided in a JSON file. Open this file in any text editor, copy its entire content, and paste it to the Service account key field.Click Save.  Creating an MT engine preset Navigate to Settings > MT engine presets, click Add Preset and choose the same MT developer you selected at step 4 of the previous procedure. The Add MT Engine Preset dialog is displayed:  Click the arrow to expand the API key drop-down list and the name you assigned to the MT developer at step 5 of the previous procedure.Optionally, enter additional information about the preset to the Comment field.If you are creating a preset for Google Neural Machine Translation or Google, click Save and skip the rest of the procedure.If you are creating a preset for Intento, clicking Save at this step will create a fully functional preset, but you can enrich it by providing a Routing name, that is the name of a strategy that Intento uses to customize the behavior of their MT output. If you are creating a preset for Google Advanced Translation, clicking Save at this stage will create an operational MT engine preset that you can enrich with language specific parameters. To do it, click Add language pair. Select the Source and Target languages for the preset. Optionally, use the AutoML Model ID parameter to provide the identifier of your trained AutoML model. To obtain this identifier, log in to your Google Cloud Console and follow these instructions.Another optional parameter is Glossary ID, the identifier of your glossary to be used together with the trained AutoML model. For the information on creating and using glossaries in Google Advanced Translation, refer to this article.You can also provide labels (key-value pairs) used in Google Advanced Translation for filtering billing charges in the Google Cloud console. To create a new label, click Add Label and specify the key-value pair. Keep clicking Add label to create as many labels as required.Click Save when done. To use a customized MT engine preset, add it to your project by clicking Add in the Machine Translation dialog, as described here.

Conduct concordance searches

Conducting concordance searches | Smartcat Help Center As you move from one segment to the next, the system offers you translation matches from the TM. However, you might be seeking the translation of a single word or phrase rather than the entire segment. In such cases, you can use the concordance search by searching the TM for matches containing the word or phrase. Select the word in the Source or Target field and press the button in the toolbar or Ctrl+K.  The word will be copied to the concordance search field, and the Concordance Search tab will display matches from translation memories applied to the project and containing the keyword. Alternatively, you can also type in the word in the Concordance Search tab, select Source or Target, and hit the Search button. One of the advantages of a tool like Smartcat where the data is centralized is that concordance searches will look in the entire TM, not its local subset. This results in more relevant matches. To find translations of a word or phrase in any available TMs that are not enabled on the project, use the Global Search tab under Linguistic assets in the main workspace. Then hit Global concordance and type in a keyword. To figure out a translation memory where the keyword is found, hit the downward arrow to the right of the keyword.

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