Dual-Language Document Assistant helps you prepare source documents for translation in dual-language (source+target language) format. It provides several tools that duplicate the source text in two formats: (1) two-column table and (2) text separated by a delimiter (e.g. slash / or line break).
Detailed information about Dual-Language Document Assistant
- How Dual-Language Document Assistant can help you in your work
- Where to find the tool
- Using Dual-Language Document Assistant
- Related tools
How Dual-Language Document Assistant can help you in your work
Dual-Language Document Assistant is designed to facilitate the creation of dual-language documents which contain text side by side in two languages, such as contracts, reports, etc. It will save you a lot of time because creation of dual-language documents is a time-consuming process.
Dual-Language Document Assistant has numerous options to help you format source documents before they are translated manually or imported into your CAT tool. It can format source text in one of two ways:
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As a dual-column dual-language table, with the source text duplicated in the second column of the table. If you use this layout option, you can opt to place each paragraph in a separate table row, or place all selected text inside a single table row.
Sample:
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As dual-language text, with a copy of the source text (future target text) placed immediately after the source text. You can choose from a set of pre-defined delimiters: slash, backslash, line break and paragraph mark.
Sample:
The tool can format the left or right side using a custom highlight color, making it easier to translate the text manually or to hide highlighted or non-highlighted text in order to translate the document in your CAT tool.
Where to find the tool
To run Dual-Language Document Assistant, click Dual-Language Assistant button on TransTools ribbon in Word:
Using Dual-Language Document Assistant
When you open Dual-Language Document Assistant, you will see a special dialogue that you can use while formatting your document. You can switch between the dialogue and the main Microsoft Word window at any time to perform additional editing tasks.
- To convert selected paragraphs to a dual-column, dual-language table,
click Convert to bilingual table button. - To convert selected paragraphs to bilingual text, click Convert to bilingual text button.
You can customize the format of generated dual-language tables and dual-language text by clicking the Change... button located under Convert to bilingual table or Convert to bilingual text buttons. Read the following sections for a detailed description of the options.
Dual-language tables – additional options
To customize the format of generated dual-language tables, click Options... button located under Convert to bilingual table button. This will expand the form to show addition options:
- Format: Choose the format of the dual-language table. Select “Put each paragraph in a row” so that each selected paragraph is placed in a separate table row (see the sample above). Select “Put all text in one row” and all the selected text will be placed in a single table row.
- Table format: In this section, you can configure basic table formatting:
- Use the Width parameter to specify the width of generated tables. Width can be measured in percent or measurement units configured under Word's Options (normally, this is centimeters). The default value is ‘100%’.
- Use the Alignment parameter to specify the table's alignment: left, centered or right. The default value is ‘Left’.
- Use Border width parameter to specify the thickness of the table's border. Specify ‘None’ to have invisible border, ‘Default’ to have the default border width which is used for newly inserted tables, or a specific border width like 0.25 points, 0.50 points, etc. The default value is ‘Default’.
- Use Indent By parameter to specify how much the table should be indented from the left margin (in points) if it is left-aligned.
- Column widths: Here, you can specify the widths of Column 1 and Column 2 (in percent). This is handy if the source or target text will be significantly longer. The default values are 50% and 50%.
- Translation will be in Column 1 / 2: Choose which column (Column 1 or Column 2) is reserved for translation. This column will be formatted to make it easier to see where translation should be inserted and to improve processing in CAT tools:
- Choose a color from Highlight Color list to apply highlighting to the text that must be replaced with translation. You can choose a specific highlight color or “Do not highlight” option. This parameter is very useful because highlighting makes it easier to see what needs to be translated. If you use a CAT tool like SDL Trados Studio, memoQ, Déjà Vu X, etc., you can use Hide/Unhide Text command later to mark the highlighted text as visible and the rest of the text as hidden before importing the document into the CAT tool.
- If the text contains any automatic numbered lists, numbered lists will be used inside the Translation Column, while automatic lists in the Original Column will have textual numbering. This way, the document will have the same numbering and you will not see list item numbers when you translate the text inside your CAT tool.
- Respect paragraph styles: When the original text is converted into a table using Microsoft Word's built-in command called Convert Text to Table, the paragraphs may not look exactly like in the original. Most of the time, this concerns indentation of the paragraphs. If you activate this option, Dual Language Document Assistant will re-apply the original paragraph style to each paragraph of the created tables. Keep in mind that this may cause problems in some cases, so use this option only if paragraph styles are not fully respected in the created dual-language tables.
Dual-language text – additional options
To customize the format of generated dual-language text, select Option 1 or Option 2 buttons and click Options... button located under Convert to bilingual text button. This will expand the form to show addition options:
- Format: Choose the format of the dual-language text. Select “Place copy after each paragraph” so that a copy of each selected paragraph is placed immediately after the source paragraph and a separator character (see the sample above). Select “Place copy after selected paragraphs” and a copy of all the selected paragraphs will be placed after the original selection.
- Separator: This is a character used to separate the source and target text parts. You can choose ‘Slash’, ‘Backslash’, ‘Line break’, ‘Paragraph break’, ‘Slash + Line break’ or ‘Slash + Paragraph break’. The default separator is ‘Slash’.
- Do not duplicate initial numbers: If the source document uses headings with manual numbering, e.g. “1. General”, you do not want to duplicate the initial numbering on the right side. In this case, use this option. The option is checked by default.
- New paragraph spacing: If you use ‘Paragraph break’ as the separator, you may need to use different paragraph spacing (as configured in the Paragraph Format dialogue of Microsoft Word under “Before” and “After” parameters) in the new paragraphs created after the originals. Use ‘same’ (default) if you want to use the same paragraph spacing, or specify other values (in points).
- Translation will be on Left side / Right side + Highlight Color: Use these 2 parameters to make it easier to translate the text. When you choose a specific highlight color from the Highlight Color list, the text on the left or right side will be highlighted using this color. This is very handy if you want to further process the document in a CAT tool – just use Hide/Unhide Text command later to mark the highlighted text as visible and the rest of the text as hidden. If you don't use a CAT tool, highlighting can help you see where translation should be typed.
Sometimes you may need to use different bilingual text options in the same document. For example, you may need to use ‘slash’ as the separator for headings and ‘line break’ as separator for table values. Option 1 and Option 2 buttons offer a convenient way to switch between configuration settings without spending time to perform configuration changes.
Using configuration profiles
Depending on the type of your document, you may need to use different configuration settings of Dual-Language Document Assistant commands. For example, to process documents for Customer A, you need to place the original on the right side, formatting the left side using a highlight color for translation in a CAT tool, use zero-width border, and use line break as the dual-language text separator.
The profile area is located at the bottom of Dual-Language Document Assistant dialogue.
To save current configuration settings to a new profile, select or deselect various options under Dual-language table and Dual-language text buttons, and choose [New profile...] from the list at the bottom of the dialogue. Assign the name to the new profile and click OK.
To save current configuration settings to an existing profile, select or deselect various options on the dialogue, select the profile from the list at the bottom of the dialogue, and click Save.
To load a specific profile, select it from the list at the bottom of the dialogue and click Load.
The Default profile is loaded automatically when Dual-Language Document Assistant dialogue is opened.
To remove a specific profile, select it from the list at the bottom of the dialogue and click Remove. The Default profile cannot be removed.
Click Close to close the Dual-Language Document Assistant dialogue.
Click ? to go to this online reference page.
Useful reviews of this tool by translators and LSPs
Article by Euro Alphabet (with instructions): Jak stworzyć umowę dwujęzyczną w Wordzie? (in Polish)
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