Pre-flight Checker – Documentation

Pre-flight Checker icon Pre-flight Checker finds and corrects various common issues in Word documents before translation or customer delivery.

Detailed information about Pre-flight Checker

Note: Pre-flight Checker is included in TransTools+ version 2. Upgrade by downloading the latest version.

How Pre-flight Checker can help you in your work

  • Check and correct a Word document before translating it in a CAT tool: Pre-flight Checker finds and fixes various formatting issues that may affect the translation process — strange symbols, tab characters between words that affect segmentation, excessive spaces that reduce TM leverage, redundant formatting variations that cause extra tags, and others. For example, a document converted from a PDF file can have small variations in font size in a paragraph, causing extra tags in your CAT tool, so Pre-flight Checker will detect this and allow you to set a single font size for the whole paragraph to avoid the extra tags.
  • Check and correct a Word document before delivery to your customer: when a document has been exported from the CAT tool, Pre-flight Checker can identify and correct common issues — partly invisible text in tables, double spaces and other spacing issues that look unprofessional, incorrect alignment of text separated with tab characters, leftover color highlighting or hidden text, etc.
  • Use built-in profiles for checking common issues or create custom profiles: Pre-flight Checker comes with several standard profiles which are configured to perform the most common checks on documents you are going to translate in a CAT tool or documents you are about to submit to your customer. You can also create custom profiles that will perform only the checks you need with your required settings.

Where to find the tool

To run Pre-flight Checker, click Pre-flight Checker button on TransTools+ ribbon:

Pre-flight Checker button on TransTools+ ribbon

This will open Pre-flight Checker pane to the right of the current document.

Pre-flight Checker pane

Issues identified and corrected by Pre-flight Checker

Pre-flight Checker can identify and correct the following types of issues that affect the translation process:

  1. Tab characters

    Tab characters cause a number of issues:

    1. In documents converted from PDF files, tab characters can be used instead of spaces, creating large gaps between words or making words appear as if there is no space between them. Even if the text looks fine in the original, there is no guarantee that it will look fine in the translated version (due to changing text length), so it is highly recommended to replace these tabs with spaces. Also, if your CAT tool is configured to break text into segments at tab characters, such text will be segmented incorrectly.

      Tab characters between words

    2. Most of the time, tab characters are used to align text into columns:

      Tab characters for tabulation

      When this is the case, it is important to verify that the vertical alignment of text in the final document is correct. By locating such tab characters with Pre-flight Checker, you can manually perform several things: add or remove tab characters to ensure correct alignment, adjust tab stops (positions in which the text after a tab character should begin), or select the entire block of text and convert it to a table with invisible borders.

  2. Zero-width non-joiners

    Zero-width non-joiners are special characters that are used to prevent two adjacent characters from being combined into a ligature, and they cause various issues in CAT tools: term recognition failures, reduced match rates, etc. These characters also look strange when non-printing characters are displayed in Word, so translators are often confused when they discover them:

    Zero-width non-joiners in a real-life document

  3. Zero-width spaces

    Zero-width spaces are special characters that are used to indicate a boundary between words while at the same time avoiding a visual space between them. For example, zero-width spaces may be used to indicate word boundaries in Japanese, or to allow a line break after slash (/) when the slash character separates two words. During translation, zero-width spaces cause various issues in CAT tools: term recognition failures, reduced match rates, etc. They also look strange when non-printing characters are displayed in Word, so translators are often confused when they discover them:

    Zero-width spaces in a real-life document

  4. Hidden text

    Hidden text is not imported by most CAT tools, so if the source document has such text, it is important to know about it and modify the import settings if such text needs translation. Also, if hidden text formatting was used to specify non-translatable text before importing into the CAT tool, it is important to check the final document for hidden text and unhide it if present.

  5. Highlighted text (color highlighting)

    Color highlighting is often used to indicate non-translatable or translatable text or during editing, so you may need to clear the highlight colors in the final document.

    Color highlights indicate translatable text

  6. Manual hyphens

    Manual hyphens are used to indicate hyphenation positions manually. CAT tools ignore manual hyphens during import, however the presence of manual hyphens may cause extra tags in some older CAT tools.

    Manual hyphen example

  7. Paragraphs that have font, font size or font color variations

    Often, paragraphs that have inconsistent font, font size or font color occur in documents converted from PDF files, but they are rather common in other Word documents, too. Such inconsistent formatting causes a number of issues:

    1. Excessive tags. Tags indicate a change in formatting, so you will get numerous tags which will be confusing for the translator.

      Inconsistent font size and its effects in memoQ

    2. In documents converted from PDFs, different font sizes in the same paragraph can be a sign of two paragraphs merged together by mistake:

      Inconsistent font size as an indication of a missing line break

    When such paragraphs are detected, you need to set a consistent formatting for the whole paragraphs (“normalize their formatting”) to avoid extra tags. If two paragraphs were merged together by mistake, you will also need to split the paragraph in two.

  8. False tables of contents

    Sometimes, OCR and PDF conversion programs recognize text as a table of contents by mistake: the text is normal translatable text, but structurally it is a table of contents. Tables of contents in Word documents are sections that are generated automatically based on the headings present in the document. Because they are auto-generated, they must never be translated manually: instead, the translator must translate the rest of the document and then update the table of contents using the Update command. If a table of contents is translated manually (by typing translations over it), the translation can be lost whenever the table of contents is updated again, and this can be done automatically by Word or manually by the client. So, by default, CAT tools never import tables of contents, although they can be configured to do so. This means two things for a translator: 1) you will not be able to translate a false table of contents in a CAT tool unless you change the import settings; 2) even if you change the import settings, your translation of the table of contents in the final document can be lost at any moment. The solution is to convert a false table of contents to standard text which can be done with Pre-flight Checker.

    False table of contents
    Example of a false table of contents

  9. Excessive spaces

    Excessive spaces include multiple spaces between words or sentences, redundant spaces at the beginning or end of paragraphs or lines, and invalid spaces before and after punctuation marks. Without removing/fixing these spaces, you will have lower translation memory leverage from your CAT tool, and the final document will often look unprofessional.

  10. Table row height

    Some source documents contain table rows that have fixed height or minimum height. Fixed-height rows do not expand if the translated text does not fit inside the cells, so the translation may become partly invisible. On the other hand, minimum-height rows do not shrink in height if the translation is smaller than the original text, so the height of the row may become too big for the translated text. Pre-flight Checker allows you to find such rows and assign automatic or minimum height to them.

    Fixed-height table rows

Using Pre-flight Checker

Finding and correcting issues in the current document

Checking and correcting a document with Pre-flight Checker is easy:

  1. Open the document in Word.
  2. Click Pre-flight Checker button to activate Pre-flight Checker pane on the right side of the document window.
  3. Select a profile which defines the settings for checking the document. The settings of the selected profile will be summarized below the profile list and you can click Change Options of Selected Profile... button to change the settings:
    Profile settings summary
  4. Most of the time, you will want to check the entire document. If you need to check the selected text only, choose Selection option from the Scope section at the top of Pre-flight Checker panel. When Entire Document option is selected, you can also specify which types of content must be checked, e.g. headers/footers, comments, textboxes, etc., by clicking Change... button:
    Selecting the scope of the search
  5. Click Check Document button at the bottom of the panel to check the document.
  6. When the tool completes the checking process, it will display the list of found issues under Results tab, where issues of each type will be presented separately.
  7. Decide which issues need to be corrected by checking/unchecking a box for each issue, and for each issue select an action which needs to be applied during the correction process.
  8. Click Process Selected Issues button to update the document.

List of found issues
List of issues found by Pre-flight Checker

Use the following guidelines to go through the list of issues under the Results tab:

  • Each type of issue will be listed under appropriate sections within the Results tab. For a detailed description of each type of issue and how it affects the translation process, see Issues identified and corrected by Pre-flight Checker section.
  • If you want Pre-flight Checker to apply a certain action to an issue, make sure to check the box next to the issue in the Results tab. Some issues will be unchecked by default (this behavior can be changed in the profile) while other issues will be checked, so you need to go through the list and check/uncheck the appropriate boxes.
  • You can apply a specific action to each issue by picking the action from the dropdown list in the Action column:
    Available actions for tab characters
    Each type of issue has a different set of possible actions. For example, tab characters can be replaced with spaces, removed or highlighted in color, false tables of contents can be converted to regular text or highlighted in color, and fixed-height table rows can be changed to automatic height or minimum height. Selecting “Ignore” action has the same effect as unchecking the checkbox next to the issue. The action selected by default depends on the typical user choice and can be configured in the checking profile.
  • For most types of issues, you can select Highlight in Color action. In this case you can also select the highlight color which will be applied to all issues of the same type if they are marked with Highlight in Color action.
    Highlight color selection when there are issues with Highlight In Color action
  • For some types of issues, it is not possible to specify Highlight In Color action, but you can choose a highlight color to be applied to the corrections:
    Highlight color to apply to corrections
  • For some types of issues such as Hidden Text or Highlighted Text, Pre-flight Checker does not offer a way to correct each “issue” separately and instead provides actions for the entire document: unhide all hidden text, clear highlighting from all color-highlighted text, etc.:
    Global action for all hidden text
  • If you want to assign the same action to all issues of the same type, you can do so using a special Action To Be Applied list:
    Assigning an action to all issues
  • You can always correct an issue within the document directly instead of using Pre-flight Checker’s correction feature. To do this, select an issue in the list and you will see the corresponding place in the document highlighted on the screen. Correct the text as required and make sure to uncheck the issue in Pre-flight Checker panel or change its action to “Ignore”. For example, if you encounter a block of text with tab characters separating text into columns, you can convert this text to a table with invisible borders using Word’s Convert Text to Table function.
  • To check boxes quickly, you can use Up/Down arrow keys to go through the list of issues of a specific type and press Space key to check or uncheck its checkbox. You can also right-click the list and use Check Selected Rows, Uncheck Selected Rows, Check All Rows and Uncheck All Rows menu items:
    Right-click menu

When you have checked the issues that need to be corrected and selected the appropriate actions for them, click Process Selected Issues button. This will update the document and indicate how many issues have been corrected/actioned.

Managing checking profiles

A checking profile contains settings that must be used to check a document. For example, while checking final documents to be submitted to the customer, you can use two different checking profiles which you will apply as needed: one profile that only checks documents for partly invisible text in table rows (to make sure all text is fully visible), and another profile to check for all possible issues in a final document (including tab characters, highlighted text, hidden text, partly invisible text in table rows, etc.).

To manage profiles, open Profile Manager dialog by clicking Manage... button next to the profile list in Pre-flight Checker panel, or click Change Options of Selected Profile... button below the profile settings summary.

Profile Manager dialog
Profile Manager dialog

On the left side, you will see a list of profiles. Initially, this list will only include built-in profiles (profiles marked with “[TransTools]” prefix). These profiles are configured for two possible scenarios: 1) checking a source document before CAT tool import, and 2) checking a final document before delivery. Built-in profiles cannot be modified.

To create your own profile, click the Add button to create a profile with default settings, or the Duplicate... button to create a copy of the selected profile with a different name. You will be prompted to provide the name of the new profile, and then the new profile will be created and you will be able to modify its settings.

In Profile Settings area on the right side of the dialog, you will see the settings for each type of check. All types of checks have several common settings:

  1. Whether to activate the check: at the beginning of each section, you will see a checkbox called “Check for ...” (e.g. “Check for tab characters”). Check or uncheck this box to activate or deactivate the check.

  2. Default action: this setting allows you to specify how each issue of a specific type needs to be corrected by default. When an issue is found, Pre-flight Checker will automatically assign this action to each found issue, but you will be able to change it before corrections are applied. Each type of check uses a different list of actions, but there are several common actions used by all types of checks:

    • Highlight in color — select this action if you want to apply a highlight color to the found text in order to perform manual corrections later.
    • Ignore — select this action if you want to leave the text unchanged. Note that it is often better to activate “Uncheck all found occurrences by default” checkbox and assign a typical action instead of “Ignore” since it will be quicker for you to mark an issue for correction this way.

  3. Default highlight color to apply if “Highlight in color” action is selected: use this option to select the default highlight color which needs to be applied to an issue if “Highlight in color” action is selected. You can always change this color in the Results list before the document is corrected.

  4. Uncheck all found occurrences by default: when this checkbox is checked, all found issues of this type will be unchecked in the Results list. Activate this option if the majority of issues must be ignored, so that you can quickly go through the Results list and check a box only if an issue needs correction. When you activate this option, it is recommended to select the most typical action for Default Action setting to save time going through the list of results.

Here is a description of all the available settings grouped by the type of check:

  1. Tab characters

    Tab character check settings

    This check finds tab characters between words.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for tab characters” checkbox.

    Use the Default Action dropdown list to specify how to correct tab characters by default. The default choice is “Replace with 1 space or remove”: ‘Remove’ action will be applied if the tab character is found at the beginning or end of a paragraph, and ‘Replace with 1 space’ will be applied if the tab character is between two words. You can also select “Highlight in color” to apply highlight color to all found tab characters, or “Ignore” to leave the found tab characters unchanged. Naturally, you will be able to assign appropriate actions to each found tab from the Results tab.

    Use “Default highlight color...” option to set the highlight color which will be applied by default if the Default Action is set to “Highlight in color”.

    Activate “Uncheck all found occurrences by default” checkbox if you want to uncheck all the found tab characters in the Results list by default.

  2. Zero-width non-joiners

    Zero-width non-joiners check settings

    This check finds zero-width non-joiners.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for zero-width non-joiners” checkbox.

    Use the Default Action dropdown list to specify how to correct zero-width non-joiners by default. The default choice is “Remove” to remove these characters. You can also select “Highlight in color” to apply highlight color to all found zero-width non-joiners, or “Ignore” to leave them unchanged.

    Use “Default highlight color...” option to set the highlight color which will be applied by default if the Default Action is set to “Highlight in color”.

    Activate “Uncheck all found occurrences by default” checkbox if you want to uncheck all the found zero-width non-joiners in the Results list by default.

  3. Zero-width spaces

    Zero-width spaces check settings

    This check finds zero-width spaces.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for zero-width spaces” checkbox.

    Use the Default Action dropdown list to specify how to correct zero-width spaces by default. The default choice is “Remove” to remove these characters. Another possible option is “Replace with space”. You can also select “Highlight in color” to apply highlight color to all found zero-width spaces, or “Ignore” to leave them unchanged.

    Use “Default highlight color...” option to set the highlight color which will be applied by default if the Default Action is set to “Highlight in color”.

    Activate “Uncheck all found occurrences by default” checkbox if you want to uncheck all the found zero-width spaces in the Results list by default.

  4. Hidden text

    Hidden text check settings

    This check finds hidden text.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for hidden text” checkbox.

    If you want to see the list of hidden text in the Results list immediately, check the box called “Show list of hidden text fragments by default”. When this checkbox is unchecked, you will still be able to view the list of hidden text by clicking “Click here to view hidden text” link in the Results tab. Note that the list will include only the first 100 occurrences.

    Use “Default action to apply to all found hidden text” dropdown list to specify how to correct hidden text by default. To unhide all hidden text, select “Unhide” option. You can also select “Highlight in color” to apply highlight color to all hidden text, or “Ignore” to keep the hidden formatting.

  5. Highlighted text

    Highlighted text check settings

    This check finds highlighted text (color highlighting).

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for highlighted text” checkbox.

    If you want to see the list of highlighted text in the Results list immediately, check the box called “Show list of highlighted text fragments by default”. When this checkbox is unchecked, you will still be able to view the list of highlighted text by clicking “Click here to view highlighted text” link in the Results tab. Note that the list will include only the first 100 occurrences.

    Use “Default action to apply to all found highlighted text” dropdown list to specify how to correct highlighted text by default. To clear the highlight colors, select “Clear highlighting” option. You can also select “Ignore” to keep the highlight colors.

  6. Manual hyphens

    Manual hyphens check settings

    This check finds manual hyphens.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for manual hyphens” checkbox.

    If you want to see the list of manual hyphens in the Results list immediately, check the box called “Show list of manual hyphens by default”. When this checkbox is unchecked, you will still be able to view the list of manual hyphens by clicking “Click here to view manual hyphens” link in the Results tab. Note that the list will include only the first 100 occurrences.

    Use “Default action to apply to all found manual hyphens” dropdown list to specify how to correct manual hyphens by default. To remove all manual hyphens, select “Remove” option. You can also select “Ignore” to keep manual hyphens.

  7. Paragraphs that have font, font size or font color variations

    Inconsistent paragraph formatting check settings

    This check finds paragraphs that have inconsistent font, font size or font color.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for paragraphs having font, font size or font color variations” checkbox.

    Use the Default Action dropdown list to specify how to correct the found paragraphs by default. There are many options for normalizing the paragraph formatting. For example, “Normalize size, font and text color” will make size, font and color consistent if there are variations in any formatting of these types; “Normalize size” will only normalize font size if variations in font size are detected in a paragraph; and so on. You can also select “Highlight in color” to apply highlight color to the found paragraphs, or “Ignore” to leave them unchanged. You can always change the action for each found issue in the Results list.

    Use “Default font size normalization” setting to control how much the text's font size must be different from the most common font size of a paragraph in order to detect a font size variation. For example, if you select “Normalize size differences of 2 pt or smaller”, a variation in font size will be detected for a 10 pt paragraph which has a single word formatted with 8 pt font size (because the font size difference is 2 pt), but the variation will not be detected if the font size of that word is 7 pt (because the font size difference is 3 pt.) This option is useful when you check standard (not converted from PDF) documents because a large difference in font size is a sign of a deliberate formatting choice.

    Use “Default highlight color...” option to set the highlight color which will be applied by default if the Default Action is set to “Highlight in color”.

    Activate “Uncheck all found occurrences by default” checkbox if you want to uncheck all the found paragraphs in the Results list by default.

  8. False tables of contents

    False tables of contents check settings

    This check finds tables of contents that contain normal translatable text but are formatted as updatable tables of contents.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for false tables of contents” checkbox.

    Use the Default Action dropdown list to specify how to correct the found tables of contents by default. Use “Convert to text” option to convert a specific table of contents to normal translatable text. You can also select “Highlight in color” to apply highlight color to the found tables of contents, or “Ignore” to leave them unchanged. You can always change the action for each found issue in the Results list tab.

    Use “Default highlight color...” option to set the highlight color which will be applied by default if the Default Action is set to “Highlight in color”.

    Activate “Uncheck all found occurrences by default” checkbox if you want to uncheck all the found tables of contents in the Results list by default.

  9. Excessive spaces

    Excessive spaces check settings

    This check finds multiple spaces between words or sentences, redundant spaces at the beginning or end of paragraphs or lines, and invalid spaces before and after punctuation marks, and makes it possible to replace them with 1 space, remove them, or replace them with something else.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check for excessive spaces” checkbox.

    Option “Indent first line of paragraphs that start with spaces and remove the spaces” allows you to remove spaces at the beginning of paragraphs and indent the first line of the paragraph by the same visual distance. If you activate this option, Pre-flight Checker will propose to remove the spaces and indent the first line by default, but you can change this behavior if needed.

    Use “Remove spaces at start and end of paragraphs and lines” option in order to remove spaces at the beginning and end of each paragraph or line. Spaces at the beginning or end of a line are spaces that follow or precede a line break inside a paragraph. If you activate this option, the tool will propose to remove spaces, but you can change this correction option if necessary.

    Use “Remove spaces before certain punctuation” option to find and remove spaces which occur before the symbols you specify. By default, these symbols are the closing parenthesis ), the closing square bracket ], comma (,), dot / period (.), question mark (?), exclamation mark (!), semicolon (;), colon (:), closing guillemet (») and horizontal ellipsis (…). The symbols must be listed without any separators or spaces between them.

    Use “Remove spaces after certain punctuation” option to find and remove spaces which occur after the symbols you specify. By default, these symbols are the opening parenthesis (, the opening square bracket [, inverted exclamation mark (¡), inverted question mark (¿) and opening guillemet («). The symbols must be listed without any separators or spaces between them.

    Activate “Uncheck all found occurrences by default” checkbox if you want to uncheck all the found spacing issues in the Results list by default.

  10. Table row height

    Table row height check settings

    This check allows you to find fixed-height and minimum-height table rows and update their height or perform other actions.

    To activate or deactivate this check, use “Check table row heights” checkbox.

    Use “Rows to process” setting to specify what types of rows must be found:

    • Select “All fixed-height rows” option if you want to find all rows which have fixed height.
    • Select “All fixed-height and minimum-height rows” option if you want to find minimum-height rows in addition to fixed-height rows. Use this option if it is important to shrink minimum-height rows to avoid too much whitespace above and/or below the text when the text shrinks after translation.
    • Select “Fixed-height rows where text does not fit” option to find fixed-height rows where the existing text does not fit completely. Use this option if it is important to keep the current row heights unless the text is partly invisible. Note that you will need to run Pre-flight Checker again every time you adjust column widths or any other formatting, as the table text may “overflow” fixed-height table cells again.

    Use the Default Action dropdown list to specify how to correct the found table rows by default:

    • Select “Set automatic height” option to make table rows adjustable to the cell text. Use this option unless the document has identical row heights which need to be preserved as much as possible.
    • Select “Change fixed height to minimum height” option to change fixed height to minimum height so that the rows have the same height, but can expand if the text does not fit. Use this option if the document has identical row heights which need to be preserved as much as possible.
    • Select “Highlight in color” to apply highlight color to the found rows.
    • Select “Ignore” to leave found rows unchanged.

    The Default Action setting controls the initial action assigned to each found issue. You can always change the action for any issue in the Results list before correcting the document.

    Use “Default highlight color...” option to set the highlight color which will be applied by default if the Default Action is set to “Highlight in color”.

    Activate “Uncheck all found occurrences by default” checkbox if you want to uncheck all the found table rows in the Results list by default.

 

Use the Order of Checks section to change the order in which the results will appear after checking the document:
Modifying the order of checks
Use Move Up and Move Down buttons to reorder the checks as necessary. For example, you can move the most important checks to the top in order to focus on these issues.

To rename an existing profile, use the Rename button to the right of the profile name field.

If you would like to reset the profile’s settings to default values, click the Restore Default Settings button.

To help you organize profiles, you can use Profile Type dropdown list to specify the type of the current profile: (1) Processing before CAT tool import, (2) Processing before client delivery, (3) Other. This information is shown in the profile list in Pre-flight Checker panel:
Profile type in profile list

To delete a profile, click Remove button under the profile list.

Click Save button to save the changes made to the profiles.

All profiles are stored in individual files inside a special folder: C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\TransTools+\Pre-flight Checker Profiles .
Use this folder if you need to back up the tool settings or copy them to another computer. If you are a power user, you can also modify profile settings using these files.

Tools for document formatting and preparation before/after translation

TransTools

  • Unbreaker – find and remove incorrect paragraph and line breaks to prevent segmentation issues in CAT tools
  • Document Cleaner – prepare badly formatted documents for translation: remove excessive tags and fix formatting issues after PDF conversion or OCR
  • Find & Replace Excessive Spaces (Word) – find and replace excessive spaces to improve TM leverage and improve formatting