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File translation

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Use flexible XML parsing methods

Flexible XML parsing methods | Smartcat Help Center It's common knowledge that sometimes preset XML parsers do not allow accomplishing the desired outcome like uploading only specific strings and elements for translation or adding IDs and length limits for segments in the CAT Editor. With the Smartcat flexible XML parser, you can set models for each case you have to deal with. The first thing to do is to check the Settings section in your account then go further to File Formats where you will find the settings. Secondly, you should set models here to be able to apply them for documents you are planning to upload. Of course, you may set several models that match requirements for this or that project. Before rushing to set new XML models, it's better to check the XPath syntax since the system will be looking for paths to elements in XML files according to it. Another thing to employ is a test environment that will indeed help to try out whether a model works or need to be adjusted. Be sure that Xpather will do the job. Setting a custom XML parsing method The form for setting a model has a few fields, some of them are optional while two are key and therefore mandatory. Let's begin with them. Import setting name: The name of a future parsing method. Segment-forming elements: This field is used for setting a path to XML elements you want to put in the Editor. You may set several more than one element that the system looks through a whole document.For example, the path //test-string or /test/test-string display the string Translate me from the XML file below: It's not possible to save a model without filling in, at least these two fields. Let's move on to the optional fields and checkbox. Besides the core fields, you may set the paths to translatable and untranslatable nodes, string IDs, comments, and length limits. Another available setting is whether you want to protect HTML tags in CDATA sections, which we will cover later. Translatable text: Segment-forming elements comprise nodes — other elements, their attributes, or text that can be translated. That being said, the setting is relative to segment-forming elements and are searched for within only the elements set there. More than one path could be set as well. Example: The XML file has an element test, an attribute attribute-1 , and another element test-string. Two segments will appear in the Editor: Translate me and Well. Untranslatable inline elements: It's optional to set a path to an element that you don't want to translate; thus, the element will not get to the Editor. The element's content will be marked as a tag in the Editor. More than one value can be set in this field too. Basically, the setting makes it possible to not show technical pieces or else that you don't want to translate. Here is a simple example: String ID: The field allows selecting a unique node that will be used as a segment ID in the Editor. Even though the setting is optional, it's a powerful tool that lets you update a document keeping the segment revisions as well as assignments. Only one node can be specified. Important: The field value has to be unique for each segment within the file. In the example below, the path to the attribute ID of the element test-string is used as unique identificator in Smartcat. As you may see, the segment has the ID placed at the bottom. Comments: The field, which you may use for adding comments that will be shown in the Segment comments section in the Editor. It's possible to set more than one comment.Example: Segment length limit: Here it's possible to set the path to a node, which should be an integer of the string type. The integer will indicate how many characters are possible to write in a segment. Only one length limit can be set. In the following example we are going to use these settings: Segment-forming element: //test-string Segment length limit: @max A linguist who is working on the segment cannot confirm it if the length of translation exceeds the limit. Protect HTML tags in CDATA sections: Depending on whether the box marked or not, HTML tags will be shown as an editable piece of text of substituted by Smartcat tags. Without protection, tags and the text within will look like this text within will look like this <br>text</br>. If tags are protected, Smartcat tags substitute HTML ones . It is worth mentioning that for the successful use of the custom XML parser in Smartcat, files must contain repeating elements, each of which, in turn, will be turned into a source segment.

Translate memoQ documents in Smartcat

Translating memoQ docs | Smartcat Help Center To translate memoQ documents in Smartcat, do the following: Export files from memoQ To do this, select the desired files and click Export Bilingual in the context menu.Choose memoQ XLIFF and click Plain XLIFF for other tools. Upload the obtained.mqxliff files in Smartcat Create a Smartcat project or add files to an existing project. Note that the language pair of the Smartcat project must match the one of the memoQ document. You can configure the following settings when importing the document: (1) This option allows you to choose between keeping the segmentation of the document exactly as it is in the original document by selecting “Like the source file” or splitting existing untranslated segments into sentences by selecting “Additionally segment untranslated units”. This option can be useful if the document was segmented by paragraphs originally since you have better chances to find matches in the TM with single sentences. This will be done automatically during the processing of the file. (2) This option refers back to the first option. If you selected the “Additionally segment untranslated units” option and split the original segments into sentences - the first option would revert the segmentation back to the segmentation of the original file when you export the file. If you select the “No, use Smartcat segmentation” option, the exported file would be segmented in the same way that Smartcat processed it and re-segmented the file. Typically, it is better to revert the file’s segmentation to the original segmentation because otherwise, it could cause problems when the file is reimported by the client. (3) When you import an XLIFF file it may already have translations inserted. If you want to keep these translations, you would choose the “Yes” option. This would be particularly useful if you had translated the file with a different CAT tool and then wanted to assign an editor through Smartcat. If you were to select “No” the translated segments would be ignored and the translation would have to be restarted from scratch. (4) If the file has pre-translated segments this option allows you to choose when the segments are confirmed inside of Smartcat. So for instance, if your project had TEP (Translation, Editing, Proofreading) workflow stages and you selected the option “Yes, at the last stage” the segments would be confirmed as having been Proofread and locked for the linguistic team. If you selected the option “Yes, at the first stage” the segments would be confirmed as having been translated but would still require Editing and Proofreading confirmation. If you select the option “Yes, for segments with the status:” it will open a popup as shown below: Here, you would be able to customize the confirmation of segments based upon their status as indicated in the XLIFF file and their workflow stage in Smartcat. For example, in the screenshot above, segments with the "final" status in the XLIFF file would be approved as Proofread in Smartcat. Segments with the status "translated" would be approved only for the translation stage. (5) This option allows you to completely lock segments so that no further action can be taken. If you select the “Yes, with statuses:” option then a popup will open displaying the statuses shown in the previous picture. You will be able to select specific statuses and when Smartcat parses the document it will lock all the segments containing matching statuses as the ones you selected. If you were to choose the “Yes, with translations inserted from file and confirmed” option then the segments which had been confirmed through (4) would also become locked. Importing the translated document to memoQ When you have finished working with the document, export the translation from Smartcat and import it to memoQ by using the Import/update bilingual button or the Import menu. Choose Update as the action to be performed on the document.

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.

Start your first project

Starting your first project | Smartcat Help Center Response to the invitation Have you been invited to a project? Congrats! Improving your profile has indeed paid off. Now it’s your move! Respond to the invitation by accepting or rejecting it. Don’t leave the customer hanging.Study the project details including net rates for repetitions and matches, payment terms, and other information.If you have any questions, you can contact the customer using the built-in chat. Getting started Does the job look appealing? Go ahead and take the opportunity then. First, accept the invitation. Depending on the project settings, you either will be able to start right away or will have to wait for the customer’s approval. Once you’re approved, you will receive a notification about that. Linguists use the Smartcat Editor to work on translation projects whether a project is assigned or created by a linguist. The Editor is a convenient tool that breaks documents into manageable segments. You can view the original text in the left column while translating in the right column. Once you have done translating a segment, you need to mark it as confirmed (the corresponding hotkey is Ctrl+Enter). Please keep in mind that in projects with several assignees, the first one who confirms a segment will be paid for that segment. Let the client know if you have spotted an error in the original text while translating to point it out. This will also show the client that you care not only about the quality of your work but also about the quality of the client's project. Some projects may include translation memories and glossaries, which output, as well as comments, can be viewed right in the Editor. Do not use machine translation unless you are working on the post-editing of machine-translation output. By the way, you can check the project statistics anytime right on the project page. (Here is more about statistics and cost calculation). Completion Once you have completed the task, you are welcome to get in touch with a client via the built-in chat. Clients have to accept your work before they could form an invoice on their end to pay you. You may need to reply to a few questions or make some adjustments before a client confirms that the task is completed. Getting paid Payment will be made as outlined in the project details. You will receive your earnings within 5 business days after a client successfully processes the payment to Smartcat. Make sure that you have selected a payout method that works for you to receive earning on the My Payouts page. Payment disputes It's important to check a client's dispute resolution policy for missed deadlines or low-quality translation on the project page. FAQ I cannot complete a project or document. What should I do? If you cannot complete a project, it means that one or a few segments are still not confirmed. In this case the button Done is inactive, and a document (and a project as well) does not change its status to Completed.To check i whether there're unconfirmed segments, you can use the hotkey F9 in the Editor or the button Go to the next unconfirmed segment on the tool panel. What is the right way to accept a job invitation? Before you agree to participate in a project, we suggest you do the following:Review the document for possible errors that can hinder your work and if there are any, notify the client about them. Estimate the word count and determine how much you can translate without compromising on quality. The client can assign the rest of the text to another translator thus speeding up the process.Discuss special terminology with the client, if you found any. You can also ask for a glossary or other reference material. Before getting started, discuss the deadline, cost, and volume of work to be completed. Ask if there are any special requirements that may affect these aspects. If multiple participants will be working on the same document and the segments will not be split between them, ask the client to provide a list of segments assigned to you.If it was the client’s choice to use machine translation in the project, ask them via built-in chat whether they expect post-editing of machine translation output or unaided human translation from scratch. Please avoid using machine translation without prior approval from the client. 

Connect Google Docs with Smartcat

Google Docs integration with Smartcat | Smartcat Help Center Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite. The integration between Smartcat and Google Docs enables localization managers to connect a Google Drive folder to Smartcat and create a continuous localization flow for the documents stored in that folder. 1. Pre-requisites The only parameter required to set up the integration is the URL of the Google Drive folder that you want to connect to Smartcat. For best results, create a new Google Drive folder where you will be placing Google Docs ready to be translated and copy the URL of that folder. 2. Configuring the integration To configure the Google Docs integration, log in to Smartcat and complete the following steps.Create a new integration project.In the Integrations tab, click Set up integration in the Google Docs integration tile. 3. Paste the URL of the target Google Drive folder. Click Sign in with Google. Select your Google Account and grant access to Smartcat. As a part of initial integration setup, Smartcat will automatically import previous translations, populating the project translation memories (TM) and allowing you to reuse them in the future. Smartcat will ensure that all the translatable content is available for translation as soon as possible, and that translations are pushed back into your CMS automatically, without having to monitor the process. Specify the source and target languages and choose the appropriate workflow. You can safely ignore the rest of the parameters and click Translate. 3. Using the integration If the integration is created successfully, the content of the folder whose URL you indicated in the settings is synchronized with the current Smartcat project and all the documents stored in the folder appear as Smartcat project documents. After a document translation is completed, return to the integration settings, open the Settings tab, make sure that Push translations back is selected (default) and click Sync Now. The target documents will be pushed to Google Docs and appear in a separate folder in the same location where the original documents reside. If new source segments were added to the integrated space since the previous sync, the Smartcat documents will be updated accordingly. By default, a sync disregards incomplete translations. You can, however, instruct the integration to include them in every sync by enabling the option Publish incomplete documents. For each source document Smartcat will create a folder with a _translations suffix and store the translated documents there. Instead of explicitly performing sync by clicking Sync Now, you can schedule a sync at the required intervals. To do this, click on Do not repeat and select the appropriate option from the drop-down menu.

Use the Client Portal

Utilizing the Client Portal | Smartcat Help Center When your clients reach the portal, they will see either a custom look (see example below), in case you have a subscription or a generic Smartcat portal page. The client can either log in if they have an existing portal account or create an account if they have never used the portal before, using the Log In or Create an Account options respectively. The Create an Account dialog asks for some contact information that will be stored in your account within the Client management section. Once an account has been created, the client can sign in easily. The client can then add text or files to be translated by clicking on the Add Files button or dragging and dropping files: It is now possible to add Google Suite files to be translated using the G Suite logo button. The portal will then ask the client to login into your Google account and you can then select documents from your folders: The client will be offered to choose languages for these files on the same page: And services related to these languages: Note: The languages, services, and prices are all reflected from the services that have been added to the corporate profile of the account. If you want your clients to see all the services that you provide, it is important to thoroughly fill out the service section of your profile. The same prices will also apply to all the clients if you haven't set otherwise in the Custom rates tab. It's also possible to set a rate per word as 0 or not set at all if you want a service to be free for a particular client. Once files, languages, and services have been selected and the Get a Quote button has been clicked on, the client is given an option to set a unique project name, select a TM from the ones associated with the client account and save the information by clicking on Add Details. Clicking on Skip this Part will accept the default settings. The project will be added to the list of projects in the Orders tab, and your project managers will receive a notification that a new project was created from the portal. Using the services information and the project statistics, Smartcat will calculate an estimate that will be displayed on the portal: The Project Manager in Smartcat can then see the project and the estimate on the project page as well as the approval status. The project manager can accept the estimate provided by Smartcat or edit it to add other tasks that could be performed outside the system like DTP, for example. If the PM chooses to edit the field a new dialog box will be displayed where the PM can change the cost, the currency and also upload a document to support the quote: The client can download the support file from the portal before proceeding with approval: If the Cost approval required option is checked, the client will need to approve the project before it can be started: After approval, the status changes to In progress and tasks can be assigned in Smartcat. And the client can track progress while the translation is ongoing. Even until the project is completed, the client can download the files - source and target. It is also possible to download a multilingual CSV file that can be used for review purposes: And the project is displayed in the Payments tab of the portal: Once payment is received or marked as paid, the status is changed to Paid. The client can pay an invoice via a bank card or PayPal (the Pay Now button) or by downloading the invoice and using the payment details within.

Process multilingual Excel files

Processing multilingual Excel files | Smartcat Help Center If you want to have both the source text and corresponding translations into multiple languages in one Excel spreadsheet, you can do it easily with Smartcat. Smartcat allows you to translate these files without having to copy and paste the translations into the specified columns manually. The Smartcat system automatically detects the specified columns from your Excel file and automatically configures the settings for you as a means to get the file ready for translation. Where to find the feature? First, you need to upload your Excel file. Go to your Smartcat account.Click on your workspace.Open Projects.Create an empty Project.Open that Project and upload your Excel file(s). After doing that, you'll want to choose MultilingualExcel\_v2 Parsing method in the right settings panel. How multilingual Excel works Let’s imagine you have an Excel file that looks like this: Column A (Key) - contains the IDs of your translation linesColumns B, C, E represent the target languages you want to translate into.Column D (English) - your source languageYou have some comments for each row in column F (Comment)Length restrictions in column G (Length)And columns H, I are for languages that you might add in the future, and their specific identities are yet to be determined. Upload your file and choose MultilingualExcel\_v2 Parsing method. As you can see all the columns were automatically detected (highlighted in box 3 ). And since two more languages, Spanish and Turkish, are selected in the project (highlighted as number 1), you have these options in settings (highlighted as number 2) which you can specify manually by pressing Customize Columns button or leaving it as is. Alternatively, you can delete target languages you don’t need for the specific document by clicking “x” near the corresponding languages in section 1. Deleted language will disappear in settings (2) automatically. Let’s look inside Customize Columns window: You can manually map any column to any language by pressing the column dropdown. Let’s choose column H for our Spanish target language in our example. Additionally, you can specify if there are any comments with context or some other useful information by pressing Add button (1). Next, choose the column type (2), and then select the column itself (3). You can also remove information columns that you don't need (4). Remember to click “Save”! If there is already a translation in the document, you can choose whether you want to keep it or not, and if so, whether you want the linguists to be able to edit it: Click “Finish” and wait for the magic to happen: You can now assign linguists to the project and after the translation is completed, you’ll have the resulting file with all the translations in place! Please note, there is also Spanish translation in column H, that we manually specified in Customize Columns window in our example. How column auto-detection works Automatic detection adheres to the following rules: Detection is case-insensitiveOnly the first line of the Excel file is scanned for detecting languages or the information column.All symbols, apart from a-z, will be truncated and replaced with a single “-” for matching, unless there's a full match with the language name. 💡 e.g. string length - becomes string-length (space replaced with - ) en####us - becomes en-us (#### symbols replaced with single -) en_gb - becomes en-gb (_ replaced with -) chinese (simplified) - will be matched with language name and stay as is 4. Target and Source column can contain:The language name in English, as it's named in Smartcat: Or the language tag in ISO-639 standard 5. The Context column can contain values such as key, id , or context 6. The Comment column can be labeled as comment or comments 7. The String length limit column can have labels like length-limit, string-length, length or limit 💡 e.g. Length limit, string\_length etc.

Configure settings for uploading popular file formats

Upload settings for formats | Smartcat Help Center Smartcat offers different options to process files depending on the original format. Below are some explanations for these options. Excel Generally, processing files using CAT tools required the users to copy and paste content from file to file if only some rows or columns needed to be processed. Smartcat simplifies the process greatly and eliminates the need to prepare files in advance. If you click on an Excel file that was added in the first step of the project creation process, these options will be shown on the right side: You can choose to split segments based on Sentences or Cells.If a cell contained the following content — Lorem ipsum. Dolor sit amet. And you were to choose the “Cell-based” option, you would end up with one segment in the editor:Lorem ipsum. Dolor sit amet.Whereas, if you chose the Sentence-based option, the content would be split into 2 segments: Lorem ipsum.Dolor sit amet.It is generally better to segment by sentences as it is more helpful to your Translation Memory to have smaller segments because you will have fewer matches to entire paragraphs than you would with smaller sentence segments.This option will tell Smartcat whether to parse the excel spreadsheet horizontally (by rows) or vertically (by columns)Determines whether the sheet names are included in the document upload.Determines whether the hidden cells and sheets are included in the document upload.Determines whether the header and footer content is included in the document upload.Determines whether the comments are included in the document upload.Determines  whether the graphics are included in the document upload.Determines  whether the text from shapes is included in the document upload.Determines whether the text from nested presentations is included in the document upload.If you select either the “Upload selected ranges” or “Do not upload selected ranges” you are presented with the following options: In this section, you can decide exactly which portions of an excel file are uploaded or not to the project. To select columns, enter the names of the first and last columns you need, for example, A:H. To select rows, enter the names of the first and last lines you need, for example, 1:50. Or you can use a combination of the two. For instance, if you wanted to translate a document that had columns A-Z and rows 1 through 100 but you wanted to omit column B you would apply the following rules: If you had selected “Do not upload selected ranges” the only column that would be included in the upload of Sheet1 would be column B. You can also create rules for each of the sheets in your excel file: And you can apply separate rules for each sheet like so: Here, in one sheet column, A would be processed and in the other, it would be column B. Smartcat gives you a lot of flexibility to deal with Excel files — no need to hide columns or copy and paste the content to be translated. XLIFF XLIFF is a standard file format used to exchange translation data between tools. They can be produced by Content Management Systems (CMS) or other CAT tools. It is convenient because the file can contain both source and target languages already segmented as well as some information regarding the status of the segments. There are many advanced file options for XLIFF documents when they are imported in Smartcat. Here is a basic overview: (1) This option allows you to choose between keeping the segmentation of the document exactly as it is in the original document by selecting “Like the source file” or splitting existing untranslated segments into sentences by selecting “Additionally segment untranslated units”. This option can be useful if the document was segmented by paragraphs originally since you have better chances to find matches in the TM with single sentences. This will be done automatically during the processing of the file. (2) This option refers back to the first option. If you selected the “Additionally segment untranslated units” option and split the original segments into sentences - the first option would revert the segmentation back to the segmentation of the original file when you export the file. If you select the “No, use Smartcat segmentation” option, the exported file would be segmented in the same way that Smartcat processed it and re-segmented the file. Typically, it is better to revert the file’s segmentation to the original segmentation because otherwise, it could cause problems when the file is reimported by the client. (3) When you import an XLIFF file it may already have translations inserted. If you want to keep these translations, you would choose the “Yes” option. This would be particularly useful if you had translated the file with a different CAT tool and then wanted to assign an editor through Smartcat. If you were to select “No” the translated segments would be ignored and the translation would have to be restarted from scratch. (4) If the file has pre-translated segments this option allows you to choose when the segments are confirmed inside of Smartcat. So for instance, if your project had TEP (Translation, Editing, Proofreading) workflow stages and you selected the option “Yes, at the last stage” the segments would be confirmed as having been Proofread and locked for the linguistic team. If you selected the option “Yes, at the first stage” the segments would be confirmed as having been translated but would still require Editing and Proofreading confirmation. If you select the option “Yes, for segments with the status:” it will open a popup as shown below: Here, you would be able to customize the confirmation of segments based upon their status as indicated in the XLIFF file and their workflow stage in Smartcat. For example, in the screenshot above, segments with the "final" status in the XLIFF file would be approved as Proofread in Smartcat. Segments with the status "translated" would be approved only for the translation stage. (5) This option allows you to completely lock segments so that no further action can be taken. If you select the “Yes, with statuses:” option then a popup will open displaying the statuses shown in the previous picture. You will be able to select specific statuses and when Smartcat parses the document it will lock all the segments containing matching statuses as the ones you selected. If you were to choose the “Yes, with translations inserted from file and confirmed” option then the segments which had been confirmed through (4) would also become locked. (6) Although it is not common, checking this box off will allow the use of intersecting tags as shown in the help text: (7) Placeholders are used to protect part of the text that should not be translated. See our article about placeholders for more information. (8) This is not used when processing XLIFF files. (8) This is not used when processing XLIFF files. XML There are several different types of XML file parsing methods that Smartcat handles besides the powerful flexible XML method : The structure of files varies depending on the types of tags you expect to see in the file type. With XML you are free to create whatever tags you would like to create. This can cause difficulty in the parsing of the file so each of these parsing methods follows a standard of expected tags based on the XML type. For instance, in a standard HTML document, you would expect to see(Paragraph) tags but in a DITA XML file you can expect to find predefined tags in the DITA standard such as which is shown below: By adhering to these standards the file can be parsed appropriately. For instance, in the example above the document might split segments when it hits the opening tag, but because the tag is recognized by the DITA standard, the segments are not inappropriately divided here. If you choose DITA or standard XML you will see another dropdown with the following options: They allow a user to split segments either by sentences or by tags and attributes. For instance, you may have multiple sentences contained within a paragraph tag:<p> Lorem ipsum. Dolor sit amet. </p>If you choose T ag and attribute-based, you will end up with one segment:Lorem ipsum. Dolor sit amet.Whereas, if you chose Sentence-based , the text will be segmented as follows:Lorem ipsum.Dolor sit amet.As with the other format, it is generally better to segment XML files by sentences as it is more helpful to your translation memory to have smaller segments. You will have fewer matches to entire paragraphs than you would with smaller sentence segments. (1) Some Content Management Systems (CMS) will use CDATA sections and in these CDATA blocks, they will store sections of HTML code. If you select this option, Smartcat will first parse the entire document and then go through the CDATA blocks and parse those sections again to look for HTML tags to protect them.(2) By using placeholders (see our Placeholder article), you can import and protect variables contained in XML files. PDF When you add PDF files (or any graphic files) to a project, the files are first processed using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to extract the text to be translated as well as maintain the format whenever possible. There are very few Advanced File Options for a PDF file like using OCR or not and checking the source layout. Please note that the file should not exceed 30 MB in size to be recognized. If your PDF is too large, consider splitting it into smaller parts, and upload as separate PDF files to avoid error. PowerPoint The PowerPoint advanced file options can be seen here: These options are fairly straightforward.(1) allows you to upload slides even if they are hidden.(2) allows you to upload the notes section of each slide.(3) allows you to upload spreadsheets that have been inserted into the PowerPoint presentation. Word (DOCX) There are only two unique options for Word files as shown below: (1) allows you to upload text from a Word file even if it is hidden.(2) allows you to upload the comments from a Word file.

Use XLIFF files in Smartcat

Working with XLIFF files | Smartcat Help Center Smartcat enables project managers to download files in the XLIFF format. This format is an industry-standard where files contain source and target content and segment status information. The option is available under the Special formats menu item of the Download feature: Once the XLIFF file has been downloaded, it can be opened in other applications (CAT or QA tools). There are some free tools on the market that can also be used to process XLIFFs, for example, Poedit. This application can be used by assignees who don't have a reliable Internet connection and don't have a budget for a CAT tool license. It can also be used for client review where the reviewers cannot be added to the Smartcat account and who don't want to invest the time to learn a CAT tool. Once the XLIFF file has been translated, it can be used to update the Smartcat project using the Upload button on the workspace and project page. The Update translation button should be used to upload the XLIFF file: The user will see some options during the update process: It is possible to update all the segments in the file with the content of the XLIFF file or skip segments that might have been updated in Smartcat since the export of the XLIFF file. It's possible to confirm or not segments that have been updated by the process. Segments that have been updated using this process will be indicated using a change in the segment status column: In cases where the XLIFF file will be sent to linguists, the project manager should take advantage of the Smartcat pretranslation rules to pre-populate target segments with matches from the translation memories or even machine translation since that information will be exported with the XLIFF file. This way, there might not be the need to send the TM separately (which could be a very large file) and the linguist workload will be reflected accurately by the project statistics.

Resolve file upload issues

File upload issue resolution | Smartcat Help Center Below you'll find the common reasons why Smartcat fails to upload your files.File size. Smartcat supports files of the following formats not bigger than 512 Mb so there maybe issues when uploading .docx and .pptx files of substantial size.  Solution: Save the original *.pptx or * .docx file in LibreOffice or Microsoft Office using the Save as option in the file menu. You can also split a multi-slide presentation into two or more parts and add them to one project. 2. Image size. The platform imposes a document size limit of 30 Mb for extracting text from images, and the uploaded file is larger. Solution: Split the document into parts smaller than 30 Mb. You can use tools for editing documents, for example, PDF-XChange Editor, Adobe Acrobat and others. 3. Parsing error. The platform may be unable to recognize the content of the slides. Solution: exclude all extras (e.g. hidden slides, slide masters, etc.) when loading the file into the project. To remove these elements you can a also convert your presentation to *.pdf, then back to * .pptx. 4. Text export error. Your text can contain elements Smartcat can't recognize. Solution: Modify the original document and delete elements like:invalid characterslarge pictures or videos that can cause presentation to freezeshapes and objects that differ from the rest visually or by some attributesgraphs and diagrams. FAQ Can I process TS files in Smartcat? TS files cannot be processed natively in Smartcat but it is possible to convert them using a free app called QT Linguist which is part of a larger development framework but can be installed separately. Using QT Linguist, these TS files can be converted to XLIFF which can be processed using Smartcat. Upon translation, they can be converted back to TS format using QT Linguist.QT Linguist can be downloaded from here. Is it possible to upload .jpg file for reference? You would like to upload screenshots for reference, and they are in the .jpg format. There are 2 options:You can add these files as reference to the project as described in Can I add reference files to my project? This is the easiest and fastest process but when dealing with references such as screenshots, it might create some work for the translation team to find the image that corresponds to the string being translated.You can upload individual graphic files for each segment where needed using the Camera [Alt-Insert] button in the toolbar. A picture icon will be displayed in the segment and the translator will be able to click on the icon to show the screenshot. This process takes longer but creates more targeted references. This feature needs to be enabled in the account, it is not enabled by default.

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