Dual language Document Assistant: 'clean' bilingual table?

Hi Michael!

Can you tell me how your dual-language document was created? Was it created manually by someone, or was it created by Dual Language Document Assistant and then translated in a CAT tool?
There is no tool in TransTools for this, but you can accomplish this relatively quickly using the following process:

1) A dual-language table can be converted to single-language text like this: in each table, delete one column, then convert table to text using Word's built-in command. If there are multiple tables, you can do it quicker like this: highlight all tables in a color (to differentiate them from non-dual-language tables), then delete one column from one table and do the same for the other tables by putting the selection in the redundant column and pressing F4 (repeats last action). Finally, select the first table, go to Table Tools > Layout tab and click Convert To Text button. Paragraph Marks should be selected in the options dialog, click OK to convert the table to text. For the other tables, put selection point anywhere in a table and press F4 to convert to text. When you are done, you may need to adjust indents and other paragraph formatting. So, only 2 passes through the document, it should take a minute or two depending on the number of dual-language tables.

2) Dual-language paragraphs can be converted to single-language text using TransTools+ Multiple Find & Replace tool ( www.translatortools.net/products/transto...-multiplefindreplace ). But this works only if both languages are inside the same paragraphs, i.e. the delimiter is a slash, forward slash, line break, and not a paragraph break. Suppose the delimiter is /, then you need to create a regex search expression to find text before or after the slash and replace it with nothing.

If you want to remove text before the slash:
Type: Regular expression
Find What: ^[^\/]+\/\s*
Replace with: nothing

If you want to remove text after the slash:
Type: Regular expression
Find What: \s*\/[^\/]+$
Replace with: nothing

In Multiple Replace tool, add one of these search expressions to the list, then click Find All. This will give you a list of matches. Make sure that each match represents the text you want to remove, as it is possible that the source document contained a slash and so the dual-language document still has that slash in a paragraph in addition to the delimiting slash. Also, it is common in dual-language documents not to make certain parts dual-language, and such paragraphs may also contain a slash. So, you can quickly go through the list of matches with arrow keys and uncheck the paragraphs you don't want to replace using Space key. When done, click Replace Selected button to remove the second language.

If you previously highlighted the tables in a color, the color may help you differentiate the already converted text from dual-language paragraphs that still require conversion.

Best regards,
Stanislav

Great! Good luck with finding the best workflow for this. I wonder how Voice Access interfaces with a particular Windows application. The answer could tell us whether there is any hope that Studio, memoQ and other common CAT tools will implement this. By the way, did you try bilingual formats from memoQ or Studio?