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Dual-Language Document Assistant helps you prepare source documents for translation in dual-language (source+target language) format. It provides tools that duplicate the source text in two formats:
(1) two-column table,
(2) text separated with a special separator, e.g. slash ( / ) or line break.
Detailed information about Dual-Language Document Assistant
Notes:
- Dual-Language Document Assistant is included in TransTools+ version 2. Upgrade by downloading the latest version.
- A tool by the same name is also included in TransTools (see Dual-Language Document Assistant [TransTools]). The TransTools+ tool covered in this article is an enhanced version of the tool included in TransTools, offering better user interface, keyboard shortcut support, ability to skip non-translatable paragraphs with the text tool, and other productivity improvements. It is recommended to use this tool instead of the TransTools version.
- How Dual-Language Document Assistant can help you in your work
- Where to find the tool
- Dual-language preparation at a glance
- Using Dual-Language Document Assistant – detailed instructions
- 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, i.e. documents that present original text side by side with its translation: 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 provides numerous settings 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 two-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. There are numerous other options, such as having the translation in the 1st column instead of the 2nd column, etc.
Sample:
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As dual-language text, with a copy of the source text (future translation) placed immediately after the source text and separated from the source text with a special separator like slash or line break. You can choose from a set of pre-defined separators: slash, backslash, line break, paragraph mark, etc. There are numerous other options, such as having the translation before the original text, etc.
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 with the Hide/Unhide Text tool in order to translate the document in your CAT tool. Optionally, you can also mark the source text using hidden formatting immediately in order to avoid extra preparation with the the Hide/Unhide Text tool.
Where to find the tool
To run Dual-Language Document Assistant, click Dual-Language Assistant button on TransTools+ ribbon in Word:
Dual-language preparation at a glance
Creating a dual-language document with Dual Language Document Assistant is very easy:
- Before translation, open the source document in Word.
- Click Dual Language Assistant button to activate Dual Language Document Assistant pane on the right side of the document window.
- If you have previously created a profile with the right settings for conversion, select this profile from the profile list and load the settings. If you don't have a custom profile, check the default conversion settings and update them as needed. You can also update the settings later if you are not satisfied with the conversion format by using Word’s Undo command.
- Identify the text you want to convert using two-column table format (with original text in one column and the translation in another column) and the additional areas where the original text must be separated from the translation with a separator like slash ( / ), paragraph break or another character.
- Select any number of paragraphs that need to be converted and then click Convert selection to dual-language table button or Convert selection to dual-language text button depending on the required dual-language format.
- Proceed through the document, selecting paragraphs to convert and clicking one of the buttons. To expedite the process, assign a keyboard shortcut to the table tool and/or the text tool and press the keyboard shortcut instead.
- When done, you can run Hide / Unhide Text tool to mark original text as hidden text in order to translate the document in your CAT tool (hidden text formatting is normally not imported for translation by most CAT tools in Word documents). This can be done if a highlight color was applied to the duplicated text (future translation), as per the settings. This step is not necessary if you activate Hide Original Text setting for both the table tool and the text tool before you start the conversion process.
- Translate the document in your CAT tool and export the translated document, or translate it manually.
- If the CAT tool was used to translate the document, use the Unhide Text command of Hide / Unhide Text tool to remove hidden formatting from the document, then deliver the document to your customer.
Using Dual-Language Document Assistant – detailed instructions
When you click the Dual-Language Assistant button on the ribbon, you will see a panel on the right side of the Word window:
- To convert selected paragraphs to a two-column, dual-language table,
click Convert selection to dual-language table button. - To convert selected paragraphs to dual-language text (using a separator between the source text and the translation), click Convert selection to dual-language text button.
You can customize the format of generated dual-language tables and dual-language text by clicking the Modify button located under Convert selection to dual-language table or Convert selection to dual-language text buttons. Read the following sections for a detailed description of the conversion settings.
Dual-language tables – settings
The settings for converting selected text to a dual-language table are summarized under the Convert selection to dual-language table button.
To customize the settings, click Modify button located under Convert to dual-language table button. This will expand the panel to show the settings:
- 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 setting to specify the width of generated tables. Width can be measured in percent or in measurement units configured under Word’s Options (normally, this is centimeters). The default value is ‘100%’.
- Use the Alignment setting to specify the table's alignment: left, centered or right. The default value is ‘Left’.
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Use Border width setting to specify the thickness of the table's border. Select one of the following values:
- Default to apply the default border width which Word uses by default for newly inserted tables,
- None to apply an invisible border,
- 0.25 pt, 0.50 pt, etc. to apply a specific border width measured in points.
The default value is ‘Default’.
- Use Indent By setting to specify how much the table should be indented from the left margin (in points) if it is left-aligned. This setting is ignored unless the Alignment is set to Left.
- Column widths: Here, you can specify the widths of Column 1 and Column 2 (in percent). This setting will be useful if the translation length is significantly different from the source text length. The default values are 50% and 50%.
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Translation will be in Column 1 / 2: Choose which column (Column 1 or Column 2) is reserved for translation. The tool uses this setting to apply formatting to the translation column and/or the source column in order to streamline the translation process. The following formatting is applied:
- Highlight color formatting is applied to the Translation Column as per Highlight Future Translation setting described below. Color highlighting makes it easier to see what needs to be translated, and it simplifies preparation for translation in CAT tools with the help of Hide/Unhide Text tool (refer to Highlight Future Translation setting).
- Hidden formatting is applied to the text in the source column if the Hide Original Text setting (see below) is activated.
- If the text contains any automatic numbered lists, automatic numbering will be preserved inside the Translation Column, and the Source Column will use textual numbering, i.e. numeric sequences at the beginning of paragraphs. 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.
- Use Highlight Future Translation setting to apply color highlighting to the text in the Translation column. You can choose a specific highlight color or “Do not highlight” option. The Highlight Future Translation setting is very useful because color highlighting makes it easier to see what needs to be translated. If you use a CAT tool like Trados Studio, memoQ, Phrase TMS, etc., you can use Hide/Unhide Text tool later to mark the highlighted text as visible and the rest of the text as hidden before importing the document into the 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 setting, 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 issues in some cases, so activate this setting only if paragraph styles are not fully respected in the created dual-language tables. This setting is off by default.
- Use Hide Original Text setting to apply hidden formatting to the text in the source column. If you use this setting, keep in mind that hidden text may be confused with normal (visible) text, so make sure not to convert the same paragraphs twice. It is recommended to use Highlight Future Translation setting along with this setting to make it easier to see what was already converted.
- Use After hiding, display hidden text setting if you prefer to see the text formatted as hidden. When this setting is activated, the tool will modify Microsoft Word’s settings so that text marked with the Hidden formatting option is visible on the screen. This text will have thin underlines, making it a bit easier to differentiate hidden text from standard text. This setting is deactivated by default and will only be applied if Hide Original Text setting is activated.
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Keyboard shortcut: use this setting if you want to convert text to a dual-language table quicker by pressing a key combination. Click the Change button to assign a keyboard shortcut:
Assigning a keyboard shortcutTo set a keyboard shortcut, place the cursor in the text field and press a key combination on the keyboard. This will display the new keyboard shortcut.
Notes:
(1) A keyboard shortcut must include Ctrl+Shift or Ctrl+Alt. If you attempt to assign Ctrl or Alt alone, the keyboard shortcut will be corrected automatically. So, assigning a key combination like Ctrl+S or Alt+S is not possible, only Ctrl+Alt+S or Ctrl+Shift+S.
(2) It is not possible to use the Windows key as one of the modifier keys.When you assign a keyboard shortcut, you will often see a warning that the keyboard shortcut is already assigned to a Word command or user-defined macro:
In most cases, you can ignore this warning because the keyboard shortcut you assign will only be active while the Dual Language Document Assistant panel is open in the current Word document. In all other situations, the original Word’s keyboard shortcut will work as it did before the assignment.To clear the keyboard shortcut, click the Clear button.
Dual-language text – settings
Under the Convert selection to dual-language text button, you will see 3 different customizable presets. By clicking one of these buttons, you can switch conversion settings quickly while you are working on a document or a document package. For example, you can define different separators for each preset, e.g. use a Paragraph Break as the separator in Preset 1 and use a Slash as the separator in Preset 2.
A summary of the conversion settings is displayed under the preset buttons.
To customize the format of generated dual-language text, select Preset 1, Preset 2 or Preset 3 buttons and click Modify button. This will expand the panel to display the customization settings:
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Format: Choose the format of the dual-language text.
- When you select “Place copy after each paragraph”, the tool will insert the selected separator followed by a copy of the paragraph text at the end of each paragraph (see the sample above). This is the default choice.
- When you select “Place copy after all selected paragraphs”, a copy of all the selected paragraphs will be placed after the selected paragraphs, with the specified separator between the original text and the copy.
- Separator: This is a character or a sequence of characters 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 manually typed numbering, e.g. “1. General”, you do not want to duplicate the initial numbering on the right side in most cases. In the case of the previous example, you would want the text to look like “1. General / General” instead of “1. General / 1. General”. To avoid duplicating the initial numbering, activate this setting. The setting is activated by default unless the Separator is ‘Paragraph break’ or ‘Slash + Paragraph break’.
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Do not duplicate number-only and simple paragraphs: Some paragraphs should not be translated at all, so there is no need to duplicate them. For instance, in a table containing financial data, you will likely keep the financial figures untranslated. Using this setting, you can select a predefined set of rules for non-translatable paragraphs or specify one or more regular expressions that match such paragraphs. To activate the setting, check the box and click Configure this setting button. You will see the following dialog window:
Select one of the options from the drop-down list. The following options are provided:
- Paragraphs containing only punctuation, spaces, special symbols and digits – This is the default option which matches paragraphs containing only punctuation characters, spaces, special symbols and digits.
- Paragraphs which do not contain any letters – This option will match paragraphs that do not contain any letters.
- Paragraphs composed of a single number with or without a currency symbol – This option will match paragraphs which contain a single number with or without a currency symbol at the beginning or at the end, preceded and/or followed by optional spaces. This rule should cover the most common ways of formatting numbers, including currency formats, but is not guaranteed to cover all possible scenarios.
- Paragraphs composed of a single number without a currency symbol – This option will match paragraphs which contain a single number without a currency symbol. This rule only covers numbers in non-financial scenarios and is not guaranteed to cover all possible numeric formats.
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Paragraphs meeting custom conditions – This option allows you to define custom rules for detecting non-translatable paragraphs. When you select this option, you will be able to choose from a number of predefined rules similar to the options covered above, and add one or more custom regular expressions in order to match the paragraphs you do not want to duplicate.
To activate/deactivate a specific rule, check or uncheck its checkbox. Clicking the Add button will bring up a new window in which you will be able to specify the regular expression, its case sensitivity, and description for your reference:
Use the Edit button to modify a custom regular expression. It is not possible to modify pre-set expressions, but you can use the Edit button in order to see the regular expression for you to create a new expression on its basis.
Use the Remove button to remove a custom regular expression. It is not possible to remove predefined expressions, but you can deactivate them using the checkbox.
- New paragraph spacing: If you set ‘Paragraph break’ or ‘Slash + Paragraph break’ as the separator, you may need to apply different paragraph spacing in the new paragraphs created after the originals (when doing formatting work manually, paragraph spacing is configurable in the Paragraph Format dialogue of Microsoft Word under “Before” and “After” parameters). Use ‘same’ (default option) if you want to use the same paragraph spacing, or specify other values (in points).
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Translation will be on Left side / Right side: Choose whether the translation will be before or after the separator. The tool uses this setting to apply formatting to the future translation (the duplicated text) and/or the source text in order to streamline the translation process. The following formatting is applied:
- Highlight color formatting is applied to the future translation (duplicated text) as per the Highlight Future Translation setting described below. Color highlighting makes it easier to see what needs to be translated, and it simplifies preparation for translation in CAT tools with the help of Hide/Unhide Text tool (refer to Highlight Future Translation setting).
- Hidden formatting is applied to the source text if the Hide Original Text setting (see below) is activated.
- [If the Format setting is set to “Place copy after all selected paragraphs”] If the text contains any automatic numbered lists, automatic numbering will be preserved on the translation side, and the source side will use textual numbering, i.e. numeric sequences at the beginning of paragraphs. 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.
- Use Highlight Future Translation setting to apply color highlighting to the text that must be replaced with translation, i.e. the text on the Right Side or Left Side depending on the previous setting. You can choose a specific highlight color or “Do not highlight” option. The Highlight Future Translation setting is very useful because color highlighting makes it easier to see what needs to be translated. If you use a CAT tool like Trados Studio, memoQ, Phrase TMS, etc., you can use Hide/Unhide Text tool later to mark the highlighted text as visible and the rest of the text as hidden before importing the document into the CAT tool.
- Use Hide Original Text setting to apply hidden formatting to the text in the source column. If you use this setting, keep in mind that hidden text may be confused with normal (visible) text, so make sure not to convert the same paragraphs twice. It is recommended to use Highlight Future Translation setting along with this setting to make it easier to see what was already converted.
- Use After hiding, display hidden text setting if you prefer to see the text formatted as hidden. When this setting is activated, the tool will modify Microsoft Word’s settings so that text marked with the Hidden formatting option is visible on the screen. This text will have thin underlines, making it a bit easier to differentiate hidden text from standard text. This setting is deactivated by default and will only be applied if Hide Original Text setting is activated.
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Keyboard shortcut: use this setting if you want to convert text to dual-language text quicker by pressing a key combination. Click the Change button to assign a keyboard shortcut:
Assigning a keyboard shortcutTo set a keyboard shortcut, place the cursor in the text field and press a key combination on the keyboard. This will display the new keyboard shortcut.
Notes:
(1) A keyboard shortcut must include Ctrl+Shift or Ctrl+Alt. If you attempt to assign Ctrl or Alt alone, the keyboard shortcut will be corrected automatically. So, assigning a key combination like Ctrl+S or Alt+S is not possible, only Ctrl+Alt+S or Ctrl+Shift+S.
(2) It is not possible to use the Windows key as one of the modifier keys.When you assign a keyboard shortcut, you will often see a warning that the keyboard shortcut is already assigned to a Word command or user-defined macro:
In most cases, you can ignore this warning because the keyboard shortcut you assign will only be active while the Dual Language Document Assistant panel is open in the current Word document. In all other situations, the original Word’s keyboard shortcut will work as it did before the assignment.To clear the keyboard shortcut, click the Clear button.
Using configuration profiles
Depending on the type of your document, you may need to apply different configuration settings when using the Convert To Dual-Language Table tool or the Convert To Dual-Language Text tool. 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 a line break as the separator when using using the Text tool.
The profile area is located at the top of Dual-Language Document Assistant panel.
To save current configuration settings to a new profile, select or deselect various settings under Convert To Dual-language Table and Convert To Dual-language Text buttons, and choose (Create new profile...) option from the list at the top of the panel. In the dialog window that appears, assign a name to the new profile and click OK.
To save current configuration settings to an existing profile, select or deselect various settings, select the profile from the list at the top of the panel, and click the Save button.
To load settings from a specific profile, select it from the list at the top of the panel and click the Load button.
The Default profile is loaded automatically when Dual-Language Document Assistant panel is opened.
To remove a specific profile, select it from the list and click the Remove button. The Default profile cannot be removed.
You can override the initial (default) tool settings by saving the current settings to the Default profile. If you wish to restore the initial (default) settings, you will need to delete the file called Default.xml located in the following folder: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\TransTools+\Dual Language Assistant Profiles (“username” here is the Windows user name of the current user). You can also reach this folder by pasting the following text in the address bar of Windows Explorer (Windows file manager): %appdata%\TransTools+\Dual Language Assistant Profiles .
Click the Close ( × ) button at the top of the panel to close the Dual-Language Document Assistant panel. Note that this simply hides the panel in the current document, and clicking the Dual Language Assistant button on the ribbon re-displays the panel in its previous state.
Click the Help icon ( ? ) to go to this online reference page.
Tools for dual-language translation
TransTools
- Dual-Language Document Assistant – prepare documents for translation into dual-language format
Tools for partial (selective) translation
TransTools+
- Hide / Unhide Text – mark text as non-translatable in order to hide it from your CAT tool or convert it into tags
TransTools
- Hide / Unhide Text – mark text as non-translatable in order to hide it from your CAT tool
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Prepare documents for translation into dual-language format (i.e. containing source side by side with its translation).
This tool is part of TransTools+
Note: Dual Language Document Assistant is included in TransTools+ version 2. Upgrade by downloading the latest version.
Dual-Language Document Assistant helps you prepare source documents for translation in dual-language (source+target language) format. It provides tools that duplicate the source text in two formats:
(1) two-column table,
(2) text separated with a special separator, e.g. slash ( / ) or line break.
Dual-Language Document Assistant provides tools to prepare a single-language document for translation in dual-language format
Note: a tool by the same name is also included in TransTools (see Dual-Language Document Assistant [TransTools]). The TransTools+ tool covered in this post is an enhanced version of the tool included in TransTools, offering better user interface, keyboard shortcut support, ability to skip non-translatable paragraphs with the text tool, and other productivity improvements. It is recommended to use this tool instead of the TransTools version.
Features
- The Table Tool converts source text into a two-column table with identical text in both columns, with one column highlighted in a selected highlight color in order to hide it from the CAT tool using Hide / Unhide Text tool. By hiding one of these columns before importing the document into your CAT tool, you will be able to translate the document in a CAT tool and then produce a dual-language document. A two-column table is the most common format for dual-language documents.
- The Text Tool duplicates source text in selected paragraphs by inserting a delimiter (slash /, line break, paragraph break) and a copy of the source text at the end of each paragraph. One side is automatically highlighted in a selected highlight color in order to hide it from the CAT tool using Hide / Unhide Text tool. Text separated with a delimiter will allow you to produce dual-language structure in section headings, tables, headers/footers, etc., even when you use a two-column table for most of the document text.
- Numerous options that allow you to tweak table column widths and border thickness, indentation, highlight color, whether a separate table row is created for each paragraph or for all selected text, etc.
- You can assign keyboard shortcuts to the Table Tool and the Text Tool in order to prepare documents faster.
- The Text Tool has flexible settings for skipping paragraphs that should not be duplicated, e.g. numeric paragraphs.
- You can now mark the source text as hidden text automatically as you convert text to dual-language format.
Dual-Language Document Assistant in action: screenshots
This tool is part of TransTools+, suite of productivity tools for Microsoft Office designed for translators, editors, content creators and DTP specialists.
Tools for dual-language translation
TransTools
- Dual-Language Document Assistant – prepare documents for translation into dual-language format
Tools for partial (selective) translation
TransTools+
- Hide / Unhide Text – mark text as non-translatable in order to hide it from your CAT tool or convert it into tags
TransTools
- Hide / Unhide Text – mark text as non-translatable in order to hide it from your CAT tool
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Author Anonymizer modifies author information in Tracked Changes, comments and document properties in Word documents in order to anonymize real names or correct them.
Detailed information about Author Anonymizer
Note: Author Anonymizer is included in TransTools+ version 2. Upgrade by downloading the latest version.
How Author Anonymizer can help you in your work
- Change specific user names in revisions (tracked changes), comments and/or document properties to an anonymized name such as “Translator”, “Editor”, etc. You can specify any replacement name.
- Remove all author information from revisions (tracked changes), comments and/or document properties. This feature is similar to the existing Word functionality.
- Customize which types of document information should be anonymized. You can optionally anonymize revisions (tracked changes), comments, Author property, Last Saved By property, Manager property and Company property.
- You can also use Author Anonymizer to correct author information in Word documents, e.g. when the existing author names are misspelt, etc.
- You no longer need to remember to set the correct name in Word Options before starting your work on a Word document. Update any document at any time.
- Batch-process multiple documents at once.
Where to find the tool
To run Author Anonymizer, click Author Anonymizer button on TransTools+ ribbon:
This will open Author Anonymizer window.
Using Author Anonymizer
At a glance, here is how to modify author names in one or more documents:
- Open Author Anonymizer tool by using Author Anonymizer button under Word’s TransTools+ tab.
- Select the documents you would like to process, or use Process current (active) document option to process the current document only.
- If you need to change specific or all author names in revisions (tracked changes), comments and/or document properties, use Update author information action, then specify author names you would like to replace and the new author name and author initials you would like to use instead. Author Anonymizer will search each document for the specified author names used in revisions, comments and/or document properties, and replace them with the new name.
- If you need to clear author names in revisions (tracked changes), comments and/or document properties similar to the way that Microsoft Office removes personal information (i.e. by using “Author” for revisions and comments and by clearing document properties), then use Remove all author information action.
- Check the checkboxes representing the types of document information you would like to anonymize: Revisions (tracked changes), Comments, Author property, Last Saved By property, Manager property and Company property.
- Click the Next button and follow the prompts to complete the process.
You will find detailed instructions for using Author Anonymizer in the sections below.
Selecting documents to process
If you would like to process several documents at once, click Add files... button to add files and select the documents. Author Anonymizer supports the following types of documents: Word Documents (*.DOCX), Word Macro-Enabled Documents (*.DOCM), Word 97-2003 Documents (*.DOC), Word Templates (*.DOTX), Word Macro-Enabled Templates (*.DOTM), Word 97-2003 Templates (*.DOT), Rich-Text documents (*.RTF). To add all documents of supported formats located in a specific folder, click Add folder... button and select the folder.
If you would like to process the current document only, select Process current (active) document option. Note that Author Anonymizer will need to save this document before it can process it.
Update Author Information action
By default, the tool uses Update Author Information action which replaces specific author names found in the document(s) with a new author name. For example, if a team of linguists have updated a Word document using tracked changes and/or comments, the names of these linguists appearing in tracked changes and comments will be changed to a single anonymized name like “Translator” or “Editor”. You can also correct misspelt names using this action. To perform this action, make sure that Update author information in selected in the Action dropdown list. Then specify the names of users that need to be updated:
- Use the Add button to specify a single name.
- Use the Add From button to extract names from documents and add them to the list. When you click this button, you will see a menu with two options – Add from document(s) to be processed (to extract names from the documents you have selected above) and Add from custom documents... (to choose custom documents to extract names from). Names will be extracted according to the document information options (see below), so if the Revisions and Comments checkboxes are the only checkboxes that are checked, the names will be extracted from revisions (tracked changes) and comments only.
- Use the Edit button to change a selected name.
- Use the Remove button to remove one or several selected names.
By default, Author Anonymizer searches documents for the provided author names in case-insensitive way, i.e. "D" and "d" are considered identical. If you want to use case-sensitive search, activate Match Case checkbox below the author name list.
You will also need to specify the new author name and initials. In the New Author field, enter the new author name which will replace the author names specified in the list above. In the New Author Initials field, specify the initials (e.g. “JD” for “John Doe” or “T” for “Translator”) – these initials will appear in comments if the author name is updated. New Author Initials field may be left blank, and its text must not be longer than 9 characters.
Options of Update Author Information action
To complete the configuration of Update author information action, do not forget to check the appropriate checkboxes below in order to indicate which document information must be updated.
Remove All Author Information action
In addition to replacing author names, Author Anonymizer can remove author information as follows: tracked changes and comments will be marked as created by “Author”, while document properties will be reset to blanks. To perform this action, select “Remove all author information” option from the Action dropdown list. This action is similar to the removal of personal information done by the Document Inspector, although this option does not activate “Remove personal information from document properties on save” setting for the processed documents.
Options of Remove All Author Information action
Document information to update
When you use any of the two possible actions – Update author information action or Remove all author information action – the tool will only process certain parts of each document as per the checkboxes in Process The Following Document Information group:
- Revisions (also known as “tracked changes”). Each revision is marked with the name of the author that created it, and the tool will update this name with the specified New Author Name when using the Update Author Information action (if the existing author name matches one of the specified names), or with “Author” if you select Remove All Author Information action. Revisions are processed by default.
- Comments. Each comment is marked with the name and initials of the author that created it. The tool will update this name with the specified New Author Name and New Author Initials when using the Update Author Information action (if the existing author name matches one of the specified names), or with “Author” for name and “A” for initials if you select Remove All Author Information action. Note that the New Author Initials may be left blank, and they must not be longer than 9 characters. Comments are processed by default.
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Document properties. These are information fields that describe a document and they can be found in the Info section under the File tab of Microsoft Word. The tool will update properties with the specified New Author Name when using the Update Author Information action (if the property value matches one of the specified names), or with an empty value if you select Remove All Author Information action. The tool can process the following document properties:
- Author document property. This document property contains one or more names of people who created the document.
- Last Saved By document property. This property is filled in by Word automatically when a document is saved. Note that this property cannot be updated or cleared in the following formats: Word 97-2003 Documents (*.DOC), Word 97-2003 Templates (*.DOT) and Rich-Text documents (*.RTF) – this is because Author Anonymizer needs to resave these types of documents during the processing operation, and resaving causes this property to be updated automatically.
- Manager document property. This document property contains one or more names of people who managed the work on creating the document.
- Company document property. This document property contains the name of the company which created the document.
Options in Process The Following Document Information group
Saving and loading settings to/from profiles
If you use the same anonymization settings occasionally, you can save time by using the Profiles area located at the top of the anonymization settings:
For example, you can create a profile that contains the names of all translators in your translation team, in order to replace them with “Translator”, saving time on setting up Author Anonymizer.
By default, the list of profiles contains only one entry – “(Default profile)”. This profile contains default settings which are loaded automatically as you open Author Anonymizer. You can save your often-used settings to this profile if you want these settings to be loaded automatically.
To create a new profile and save the current settings to it, open the drop-down list of profiles and select (Create new profile...) entry. To load the settings from a profile, select it and click the Load button. To save current settings to a profile, select that profile and click the Save button, or create a new profile as described above. To delete a profile, select it in the list and click Remove button.
All profiles are stored in individual files inside a special folder: C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\TransTools+\Author Anonymizer 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.
Performing anonymization
Once you have defined the documents to be processed and configured the anonymization settings, it is time to complete the anonymization process. Click the Next > button to advance to the next step. Author Anonymizer will check each document for potential issues. Depending on the action chosen, you may see one of the possible screens:
- If you selected Update author information action, you may see the following screen:
This warning appears when some or all of the documents you are about to process have a special privacy setting called “Remove personal information from file properties on save” (this setting is available under File > Word Options > Trust Center > Privacy Options). When a document has this setting, Word automatically removes author information every time a document is saved, so unless this setting is deactivated, Author Anonymizer cannot perform the required action. So, this screen provides the list of documents which have this privacy setting, and suggests to skip these documents or deactivate this setting. By default, “Deactivate Remove Personal Information On Save” setting is activated, i.e. Author Anonymizer will deactivate Remove Personal Information On Save privacy setting for all listed documents prior to anonymizing these documents as per your settings. - If you selected Remove all author information action, you may see a similar screen:
This means that some documents you are about to process have a privacy setting called “Remove personal information from file properties on save” (see above). Since this setting produces the same effect as Remove all author information action, i.e. it sets the author of revisions and comments to “Author” and clears certain document properties, Author Anonymizer has only one option – to skip these documents.
Click the Next > button to proceed.
The next screen offers an option to back up all the documents before they are updated:
If you want to back up original documents before processing, make sure that this checkbox is activated (this is the default setting). The original documents will be backed up in the original folders, and the backed-up files will have the date and time of the processing operation added to the end of their file names, e.g. if you process a document named “Sample document”, the back-up file will be named something like “Sample document_2024-01-30-13-01” (if processing took place at 13:01 on January 30, 2024).
Finally, click the Process >> button to process the files. You will see a processing report:
Review the processing report. Normally, you will see “Updated successfully” if changes were made or “No changes are needed for this document” if no author updates were necessary. However, if any errors occur, they will be reported here.
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Author Anonymizer modifies author information in Tracked Changes, comments and document properties in Word documents in order to anonymize real names or correct them.
This tool is part of TransTools+
Note: Author Anonymizer is included in TransTools+ version 2. Upgrade by downloading the latest version.
Author Anonymizer updates the names of authors in revisions (tracked changes), comments and document properties in Word documents in order to anonymize real names or modify them. Using this tool, you can quickly replace names of one or several users, e.g. translators or editors, in multiple documents so that your customer sees ‘Translator’ or a name of your choosing. This way, you can hide the real names of translators/editors from the customer, expose a single common name like ‘Translator’ to the customer to improve coordination, do so because of customer requirements, or even correct mistakes in author names.
Author Anonymizer tool offers various options to anonymize specific authors in revisions, comments and document properties
Features
- Change specific user names in revisions (tracked changes), comments and/or document properties to an anonymized name such as “Translator”, “Editor”, etc. You can specify any replacement name.
- Remove all author information from revisions (tracked changes), comments and/or document properties. This feature is similar to the existing Word functionality.
- Customize which types of document information should be anonymized. You can optionally anonymize revisions (tracked changes), comments, Author property, Last Saved By property, Manager property and Company property.
- You can also use Author Anonymizer to correct author information in Word documents, e.g. when the existing author names are misspelt, etc.
- You no longer need to remember to set the correct name in Word Options before starting your work on a Word document. Update any document at any time.
- Batch-process multiple documents at once.
Author Anonymizer screenshots
This tool is part of TransTools+, suite of productivity tools for Microsoft Office designed for translators, editors, content creators and DTP specialists.
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If you are a user of TransTools or TransTools+, you may need to copy TransTools/TransTools+ settings and configuration files to another computer, create their backup, restore them on the same computer, etc. TransTools Migration Utility makes it easy to do this. It can create a migration pack containing the settings and configuration files for TransTools/TransTools+ tools installed on your computer, and then restore these settings / files on the same or different computer at any time from a migration pack file.
Here are some examples of what you can do with TransTools Migration Utility:
- Transfer TransTools/TransTools+ settings/configuration files to your colleague.
- Back up your TransTools/TransTools+ settings/configuration files to avoid losing them in the event of a system failure.
- Restore TransTools/TransTools+ settings/configuration files after a system failure.
- Prepare for a planned upgrade of your computer and restore TransTools/TransTools+ settings/configuration files after the upgrade is completed.
Download and Installation
There are 2 ways to get TransTools Migration Utility up and running:
- Download the latest installation file for TransTools or TransTools+ and install it. TransTools Migration Utility is included in TransTools v.3.32 and TransTools+ 2.2 (if you are using version 2) or 1.11 (if you are still using version 1), or in any newer versions of these packages. Once you have installed TransTools or TransTools+, the easiest way to find TransTools Migration Utility is to use Windows Search bar or the search field in Windows Start menu, typing "TransTools Migration Utility". You can also find MigrationUtility.exe executable file under C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\TransTools+\Migration Utility\ folder for TransTools+ or under C:\Users\<username>\Documents\TransTools\Migration Utility\ folder for TransTools.
- Download a separate ZIP package containing TransTools Migration Utility and unzip it to a folder of your choice. You will then be able to run TransTools Migration Utility by double-clicking MigrationUtility.exe executable file.
TransTools Migration Utility requires .NET Desktop Runtime v.6 from Microsoft. If this runtime is not yet installed on your computer and you run TransTools Migration Utility, you will be prompted to download it. However, this does not always happen, especially on older versions of Windows such as Windows 7 or Windows 8. In this case, go to https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/6.0, find the section called ".NET Desktop Runtime 6.#", and then click x64 link if you have a 64-bit version of Windows or x86 link if you have a 32-bit version of Windows (Arm64 version is also available). You can also download .NET Desktop Runtime v.6 from this link for a 64-bit version or this link for a 32-bit version. Once the download is completed, run the downloaded installer and follow the prompts to complete the installation.
Also make sure that you have one of the following Windows versions: Windows 11 or newer version, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 SP1 with Extended Security Updates installed.
Using TransTools Migration Utility
If you have installed TransTools or TransTools+ from an installation program, the easiest way to run TransTools Migration Utility is to use Windows Search bar or the search field in Windows Start menu, typing "TransTools Migration Utility". You can also run MigrationUtility.exe executable file located under C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\TransTools+\Migration Utility\ folder for TransTools+ or under C:\Users\<username>\Documents\TransTools\Migration Utility\ folder for TransTools.
When you run TransTools Migration Utility, you will see the following screen:
On the first screen, select the required operation: (1) Create a migration pack containing TransTools/TransTools+ settings and configuration files, or (2) Restore TransTools/TransTools+ settings and configuration files within the current Windows user profile from an existing migration pack.
Creating a new migration pack
To create a new migration pack, select the first choice (Create a migration pack containing TransTools/TransTools+ settings and configuration files) and click the Next button. You will be presented with a list of all TransTools+ and TransTools tools whose settings are found within the current Windows user profile (i.e. under the current Windows logon name):
Note: You will not be able to proceed to this step unless TransTools or TransTools+ is installed.
You can check or uncheck the boxes in this list if you would like the migration pack to include specific tools' settings only. Click the Next button to proceed to the next step where you will need to select the location of the new migration pack. This can be a new file or an existing file.
Select the location of the migration pack and click the Next button to finish. You should see a report about successful creation of the migration pack.
Restoring from an existing migration pack
To restore settings from an existing migration pack, select the second choice (Restore TransTools/TransTools+ settings and configuration files from an existing migration pack) and click the Next button. You will be prompted to select the location of the migration pack file containing TransTools/TransTools+ settings and configuration files created with TransTools Migration Utility:
Note: You will not be able to proceed to this step unless TransTools or TransTools+ is installed. So, you must install TransTools and/or TransTools+ before you can apply a migration pack.
When you select an existing migration pack and click the Next button, you will see a list of all TransTools and TransTools+ tools included in the migration pack:
If you want to apply the configuration of specific tools only, you can check or uncheck the relevant checkboxes at this step. Then, click the Next button.
At the next optional step, you may see a list of TransTools / TransTools+ configuration files that are present in the current user profile but missing in the migration pack. The Migration Utility will ask you whether to keep those files or delete them. For example, you may have created a new list of search expressions for TransTools+ Multiple Find & Replace tool recently (which is missing in the migration pack being restored) and you might want to keep this list for future use while applying configuration settings from the migration pack. By default, such files will be preserved, but you can check the boxes on this screen to delete such files.
List of configuration files present on the current system but missing in the migration pack
At the next step, you will be given a choice to back up the current configuration settings and files of TransTools and TransTools+. If you want to do this, leave the checkbox checked and select the location of a migration pack which will contain the current configuration of TransTools and TransTools+. Otherwise uncheck the checkbox.
When you click the Next button, TransTools Migration Utility will apply the configuration settings from the migration pack, including configuration files. When the operation is completed, you will see a success report.
Troubleshooting
If you see an error message during installation or usage of the application, please submit the application log file located at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\TransTools Migration Utility\Log along with screenshots. Also, please include a short summary to help understood when the error message took place.
Here are some possible issues:
- TransTools Migration Utility fails to open: 1) Check the requirements in the Download and Installation section above. 2) Make sure that your antivirus program is not blocking TransTools Migration Utility – some antivirus programs may block rare applications from running even though they have been thoroughly checked for viruses and malicious code.
- There are errors when restoring configuration from a migration pack: make sure that the migration pack being restored was created with TransTools Migration Utility. Even though migration packs have ZIP file extension, TransTools Migration Utility will reject ZIP files which were not created with TransTools Migration Utility.
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Pre-flight Checker finds and corrects various common issues before translation or customer delivery.
This tool is part of TransTools+
Note: Pre-flight Checker is included in TransTools+ version 2. Upgrade by downloading the latest version.
Pre-flight Checker searches Word documents for common formatting issues which may cause problems for you during translation in a CAT tool or when you deliver the final document to your customer, and lets you fix these issues easily. Such issues include tab characters that affect segmentation in a CAT tool or visual alignment of the text, excessive spaces, inconsistent formatting, stange characters, overlooked color highlighting or hidden text, partly invisible text, etc. Pre-flight Checker includes built-in profiles for checking documents prior to CAT tool translation and delivery to the customer, and lets you create custom profiles that perform specific checks using custom settings. Pre-flight Checker is a must for documents converted from PDF files, and should be used on any other Word documents to avoid difficulties during translation and to create a well-formatted document for the customer.
List of formatting issues found by Pre-flight Checker
Features
- Resolve common formatting issues before translating in a CAT tool: tab characters between words that affect segmentation, excessive spaces that cause reduced TM match rates, false tables of contents that cause translatable text to be hidden from your CAT tool, minor variations in font formatting that produce extra tags, etc.
- Locate and fix formatting issues before delivery of final documents to your customers: partly invisible text in table rows, potential misalignment of text separated with tab characters, excessive spaces which cause the text to appear less professional, and other issues.
- Use built-in checking profiles designed to address common issues.
- Create custom checking profiles to run the right checks with required settings.
Pre-flight Checker screenshots
This tool is part of TransTools+, suite of productivity tools for Microsoft Office designed for translators, editors, content creators and DTP specialists.
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
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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
- Where to find the tool
- Issues identified and corrected by Pre-flight Checker
- Using Pre-flight Checker
- Related tools
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:
This will open Pre-flight Checker pane to the right of the current document.
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:
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Tab characters
Tab characters cause a number of issues:
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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.
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Most of the time, tab characters are used to align text into columns:
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.
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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:
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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:
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Excessive tags. Tags indicate a change in formatting, so you will get numerous tags which will be confusing for the translator.
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In documents converted from PDFs, different font sizes in the same paragraph can be a sign of two paragraphs merged together by mistake:
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.
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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.
Example of a false table of contents -
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.
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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.
Using Pre-flight Checker
Finding and correcting issues in the current document
Checking and correcting a document with Pre-flight Checker is easy:
- Open the document in Word.
- Click Pre-flight Checker button to activate Pre-flight Checker pane on the right side of the document window.
- 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:
- 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:
- Click Check Document button at the bottom of the panel to check the document.
- 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.
- 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.
- Click Process Selected Issues button to update the document.
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:
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.
- 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:
- 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.:
- 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:
- 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:
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
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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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Tab characters
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.
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Zero-width non-joiners
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.
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Zero-width spaces
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.
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Highlighted text
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.
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Manual hyphens
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.
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Paragraphs that have font, font size or font color variations
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.
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False tables of contents
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.
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Excessive spaces
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.
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Table row height
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:
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:
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
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February 27, 2023
Helping the CAT tool with TransTools: extra materials for attendees of ITA Conference 2023
Written by Stanislav OkhvatThank you for attending the presentation on using TransTools and TransTools+ to improve the translation process!
Below, please find downloadable materials and links which you can use as reference during document processing before/after translation and to help you learn more about TransTools and TransTools+:
- Workflow — Document preparation before/after translation, post-translation QA (PDF format)
- Converting PDF files to Word documents and formatting converted documents before/after translation in a CAT tool:
- How-to videos on using TransTools and TransTools+ tools:
Download TransTools and TransTools+ from the Downloads page and evaluate fully-functional versions for 30 days.
Special offer for ITA Conference 2023 attendees: 25% discount for TransTools and TransTools+. Use this coupon code during the purchase: ITA2023. To purchase a license, go to the Product Store.
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January 17, 2023
Using TransTools and TransTools+ to Improve Your Translation Process: extra materials for ATA webinar attendees
Written by Stanislav OkhvatThank you for attending the ATA webinar on using TransTools and TransTools+ to improve the translation process!
Below, please find downloadable materials and links which you can use as reference during document processing before/after translation and to learn more about TransTools and TransTools+:
- Workflow — Document preparation before/after translation, post-translation QA (PDF format)
- Converting PDF files to Word documents and formatting converted documents before/after translation in a CAT tool:
- How-to videos on using TransTools and TransTools+ tools:
Download TransTools and TransTools+ from the Downloads page and evaluate fully-functional versions for 30 days.
Special offer for attendees of ATA webinar: 30% discount for TransTools, TransTools+ and other products. Use this coupon code during the purchase: ATA2023. To purchase a license, go to the Product Store.
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Extract translatable text from the current CAD drawing file or multiple files for translation in a CAT tool, and translate the drawings with the resulting translation table once it has been translated.
This tool is part of TransTools
Extract Translatable Text and Translate using Translation Table tools provide an easy workflow for translating all translatable text in AutoCAD drawing(s) using a CAT tool or with the help of a standard two-column translation table.
Extracting translatable text from a CAD drawing
Features
- Process the model and/or selected layouts of the current CAD drawing file, selections, or multiple CAD files.
- Do not extract repetitions.
- Option to extract all text including repetitions for word count analysis.
- Choose which layers need to be processed in order to translate specific layers only or create a dual-language drawing.
- Use a translation table in Excel or Word format.
- Option to create translation tables for a specific CAT tool for correct handling of non-translatable text depending on the CAT tool.
BricsCAD drawing translation tools: screenshots
This tool is part of TransTools, suite of 50+ productivity tools for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, AutoCAD and BricsCAD designed for translators, editors and DTP specialists.
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Extract Translatable Text and Translate using Translation Table tools (TransTools for BricsCAD) provide an easy workflow for translating all translatable text in CAD drawing(s) using a CAT tool or with the help of a standard two-column translation table.
- How Extract Translatable Text and Translate using Translation Table tools can help you in your work
- Using Extract Translatable Text and Translate using Translation Table tools
How Extract Translatable Text and Translate using Translation Table tools can help you in your work
Extract Translatable Text and Translate using Translation Table tools dramatically improve your translation speed and quality when dealing with CAD drawings. Extract Translatable Text tool extracts all non-repetitive text shown on the drawing into a translation table in Word or Excel format, while Translate using Translation Table tool merges the translations from the final translation table back into the drawing, producing a fully translated drawing. Since CAD drawings are not supported in CAT tools, this workflow will be very useful to all translators who need to translate CAD drawings. It will also be useful for translators who do not use a CAT tool, since it allows to minimize time translating repetitive text.
TransTools for BricsCAD has the following features:
- Process multiple layouts in the current drawing and/or multiple selections within the current drawing.
- Batch-process multiple drawings opened in BricsCAD.
- Support for TEXT, MTEXT, TABLE, DIMENSION, MULTILEADER and EXTERNAL REFERENCE objects.
- All text is sorted by coordinates in top-to-bottom, left-to-right order (by X, Y and Z coordinates).
- Text is extracted with formatting codes, making it easy to preserve formatting when the text is imported back into drawings with Translate using Translation Table command.
- Formatting codes are specially formatted to make it easy to differentiate between them and translatable text. Most formatting codes are marked with special non-translatable formatting (style or hidden formatting) in Microsoft Word translation tables, which is handy for Computer-Aided Translation (CAT) tool users.
- Option to process specific layers only (e.g. if the text you need to translate is in 'TXT_EN' layer).
- Option to process text only (i.e. text objects containing letters as opposed to digits, punctuation marks, etc.).
- Option to exclude text based on specific conditions (e.g., to ignore text like 'LG-123-456').
- Configure the format of translation tables (optionally add layer or object type information).
Using Extract Translatable Text and Translate using Translation Table tools
How to run the tools
Before running TransTools for the first time, make sure that VBA support is installed as instructed here.
To run TransTools for BricsCAD in BricsCAD, you can do so from several places: the top menu, the ribbon, or even the command line (for more advanced users):
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Using the menu bar:
If the menu bar is not displayed at the top of BricsCAD window, right-click the top-most ribbon panel and select Menu Bar item in the menu:
Once the menu bar is displayed, you can do the following:
- To load TransTools for BricsCAD, select Tools -> Load Application..., then use the instructions below for loading TransTools for BricsCAD application file.
- To run the tools, open the Macros dialogue by clicking Tools -> VBA -> Macros..., then follow the instructions below for running Extract Translatable Text or Translate using Translation Table tools.
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Using the ribbon (toolbars):
The ribbon interface is enabled in BricsCAD by default.
To load TransTools for BricsCAD, click Load Application... button located under Manage tab, then use the instructions above for loading TransTools for BricsCAD application file:
To run a TransTools command from the ribbon, you will need to add Macros... button to the ribbon, as it is not there by default. The procedure is not straightforward, but needs to be performed only once. To add VBA Macros button to the ribbon, follow these steps:
- Right-click any BricsCAD ribbon panel and select Customize....
- In Customize dialogue, make sure that Ribbon tab is selected, scroll down in the list on the left, and expand the tree to select Ribbon panels > Applications > Row item.
- Right-click this expanded Row item and select Append command button.
- In Add ribbon command button dialogue, leave Select available tool checked, then select VBA > Macros... from the list and click OK.
- When Macros... item has been added to the tree on the left side, select it.
- For Button Style attribute in the list below, select Large with text (vertical).
- For Image attribute in the list below, select it, then click ... button on the right side and select vba icon from Tool Image dialogue.
- Click OK button in Customize to finish. Macros... will be added to the ribbon under Manage tab:
Once Macros... button has been added to the ribbon, switch to Manage tab and click Macros... button, then follow the instructions below for running Extract Translatable Text or Translate using Translation Table tools.
If you cannot add this button for any reason, use the alternative methods (menu bar or command prompt) as explained in this section.
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Using the command line:
- To load TransTools for BricsCAD, type APPLOAD at the command prompt, then use the instructions above for loading TransTools for BricsCAD application file.
- To run the tools, type VBARUN at the command prompt, then follow the instructions below for running Extract Translatable Text or Translate using Translation Table tools:
Loading TransTools using Load Application dialogue
When you have opened Load Application Files dialogue using the menu bar, ribbon or command line as explained above, unless TransTools for BricsCAD.dvb file is already shown in the list, click the + button to select TransTools for BricsCAD.dvb from disk (if you used the automatic installer, this should be in your Documents\TransTools folder).
Then, load TransTools for BricsCAD by checking the checkbox in Loaded column. If you would like TransTools to be loaded automatically every time BricsCAD starts, check the checkbox in AutoLoad column.
Running the tools
When TransTools for BricsCAD has been loaded, you can finally run one of the tools. Open the Macros dialogue from the menu bar, ribbon or command line as explained above.
In the Macros dialogue, select either Trans_CollectUniqueValues (Extract Translatable Text tool which extracts text from the drawing) or Trans_Replace (Translate using Translation Table tool which merges text back into the drawing) and click Run.
Prerequisites: Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) support in BricsCAD
By default, VBA support is not installed when you install BricsCAD. In order to install it, follow the instructions below:
- Close BricsCAD if it is open.
- Open BricsCAD installation folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Bricsys\BricsCAD V21 en_US for BricsCAD v.21).
- In this folder, locate a subfolder called VBA and open it.
- Run BricsCAD-VBA-Runtime.exe installation file and follow the prompts to install VBA support into BricsCAD.
Extracting translatable text using Extract Translatable Text tool
To extract translatable text from a drawing, run Extract Translatable Text tool as described above. You will see the following dialogue:
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Select one of the options depending on where the text is located:
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Option 1 – Full Layout(s) (default) – choose this option if you want to extract all text from specific layouts of the current drawing.
Check (tick off) the appropriate layouts. Use All and None buttons to check or uncheck all layouts at once.
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Option 2 – Selection(s) - choose this option if you would like to process multiple selections or layouts in the current drawing. This should be useful if your drawing has viewports and only portions of text need to be translated.
Select the appropriate layout from the drop-down list and click Select Objects... to select specific objects on this layout (see below for more information) or Select Layout to select everything on this layout. Each selection will be added to the list below, so you will be able to select as many layouts or selections as you want.
Selecting objects:
When you click Select Objects..., the dialogue will temporarily disappear and you will be able to select the desired text.
- Left-click at the top-left corner of the area you want to select, a small distance away from the very top-left object that you want to include in the selection. Then, move the mouse down and to the right until the selection fully covers the text objects, and then release click the left mouse button again. You may use the mouse wheel while dragging the mouse in order to zoom in/out on a specific area of the drawing.
- Left-click at the bottom-right corner of the area you want to select, move the mouse up and to the left until the selection at least partially overlaps all text objects you want to select, and then click the left mouse button again. With this selection method, unlike the one above, you only need to select a part of a text object and it will be included in the selection.
- Rotate the mouse wheel up or down to zoom in/out. While you do this, try to move the mouse closer to the objects you want to center the view on.
- Left-click individual objects to add them to the selection set.
- Hold down the Shift key and left-click individual objects to remove them from the selection set.
- Hold down the mouse wheel and move the mouse cursor in any direction to scroll (pan) up/down/left/right.
- Double-click the mouse wheel to zoom the drawing to its extents (i.e. zoom the screen to include the entire drawing).
Press Escape if you have selected wrong objects and would like to start again (this will return you to the Options dialogue). Press Enter when you have fully selected all objects to process (this will return you to the Options dialogue).
To remove a specific selection you made, select the item from the list and click Remove. Click Clear to remove all items if you would like to start from scratch.
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Option 3 – Many drawings – this option allows batch processing of several drawings opened in BricsCAD.
In the list you will see layouts of every drawing currently opened in the same BricsCAD application window (i.e. all drawings you can see under BricsCAD Window menu).
Check the appropriate layouts manually or click All / None buttons to check or uncheck all layouts at once.
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- Extract all text (including repetitions) for calculating statistics: By default, only unique text is extracted from the drawings. However, if you need to calculate the amount of text for charging your clients, you need to see all the translatable text, including repetitions. To do this, check this option. Note: when you use Translate using Translation Table tool to translate the drawing based on such translation table, only the first occurrence of each repeating entry will be used for translation, all others will be ignored.
- Export basic formatting only: By default, meaningful text is extracted along with format codes that control the formatting of CAD drawing objects. This allows to restore the original CAD drawing formatting during the translation operation. However, sometimes you may need to put text back in the drawing manually, i.e., without using Translate using Translation Table tool (for example, your company has a large drafting department with people who are responsible for this). In such cases, click this option.
- Extract text only: If this option is checked (default), the program exports only text containing alphabetic letters. If it encounters text that contains only numbers, punctuation characters or special symbols, it skips such text. If you want to process all text, including fully numerical text, etc., uncheck this option.
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Process specific layers only: Use this option if you need to translate text that is located in specific layer(s).
When you select this option, you will see two lists.
The left-hand list is the list of layers that need to be processed. If this list is empty, all layers will be processed.
The right-hand list contains all layers within the current drawing.
Click <-Add to add a specific layer to the list of layers you want to process (left-hand list). In batch-processing mode, you can also use Add custom button to add a layer that is not present in the current drawing. Click Remove-> to remove a layer from the list of processed layers. -
Exclude text objects matching specific conditions: Use this option if you would like to skip objects whose text satisfies certain conditions (specified by a regular expression). E.g., you do not want to translate equipment numbers like 'PT-289' or line numbers like '067-DDD-056-D28', etc.
When you select this option, you will see a list of 'masks', or conditions. There is one default condition that excludes equipment tag numbers like 'PT-255', 'L-2455', etc from the Translation Table.
Click Add to add a new condition; Edit to modify a condition from the list; Remove to remove a condition; To Clipboard to save all conditions to the clipboard for use later; From Clipboard to import conditions that were created earlier.
For more information on creating such conditions, refer to the conditional filter section at the bottom of this page. -
Translation Table format: the format of the translation table generated by this command can be configured.
Click Modify to change the translation table format settings.
You have the following options:
- Format: Word or Excel.
- Include file path: this prints the full path to the processed drawing inside the translation table for easy reference.
- Include text information: this exports additional information on extracted text (layer and type of object, i.e. TEXT, TABLE CELL, DIMENSION, etc.).
- Prepare for CAT tool (Word format only): use this setting to prepare the translation table for importing into a CAT tool. You have several options:
- Do not prepare (No CAT tool) – Use this option if the translation table does not need to be prepared for a CAT tool. If you use a CAT tool, the best way to translate the table is to copy the Translation column into a new document, translate the document, and then paste the translated cells over the cells in the Translation table so that you have source and translation side by side.
This is the default option. - SDL Trados Studio, memoQ, Wordfast Pro, Wordfast Classic – If you use one of these options, TransTools will use tw4winExternal style to hide non-translatable parts of the table (i.e., instructions, heading row, original column and columns with extra information) and tw4winInternal style to mark formatting codes as non-translatable text. These options are recommended if you use one of these CAT tools. The translation table can be used inside your CAT tool without any extra preparation. After the translation table is translated and exported from your CAT tool, you can use it to merge translations into the drawing without any extra steps.
- Memsource Cloud, Déjà Vu X3, Cafetran Espresso, CAT tool with hidden text filtering support – If one of these options is used, TransTools will use hidden font formatting to hide non-translatable parts of the table and hidden font formatting to mark formatting codes as non-translatable text. The translation table can be imported into your CAT tool without any extra preparation. When you import it into your CAT tool, make sure that hidden formatting is ignored in the file import settings.
- Other CAT tool – When this option is selected, no extra formatting is applied to the translation table (besides special formatting of the formatting markers), so it is recommended to copy the Translation column into a new Word document, translate this document in your CAT tool, and then paste the translated cells over the cells in the Translation column before copying source and translation columns to the clipboard.
- Do not prepare (No CAT tool) – Use this option if the translation table does not need to be prepared for a CAT tool. If you use a CAT tool, the best way to translate the table is to copy the Translation column into a new document, translate the document, and then paste the translated cells over the cells in the Translation table so that you have source and translation side by side.
- Automatically save generated table in drawing's folder: if you check this box, TransTools will save the generated Word document automatically under the same location as the current drawing (with the same file name but with DOCX/DOC extension). This is possible if you use Option 1 (Full Layouts) or Option 2 (Selections).
When the appropriate options have been selected, click Start to generate a translation table which will be opened inside Microsoft Word or Excel (and saved if the appropriate option is activated). To exit, click Close.
When the translation table is created, you will see a notification. If any text was excluded using the conditional filter (item 6 above), you will see View Exclusions... button. When you press it, you will see all text that was skipped due to the conditional filter. Review this list to make sure your conditional filters work as intended.
CAD drawing formatting
When the drawing is output into Microsoft Word or Excel, you will see specially formatted codes inside the text. These are CAD drawing formatting codes and special codes used by TransTools for BricsCAD:
Original text:
This is standard text
This is bold text
This is italics
This is pink text
Extracted text:
\A1;\pxsm1,qj,t62;This is standard text\P\ps*,q*,tz;{\fVerdana|b1|i0|c0|p34;This is bold text\P\fVerdana|b0|i1|c0|p34;This is italics\P\fVerdana|b0|i0|c0|p34;\H1.4x;\C6;This is pink text}
These codes are very important, since they are used to restore the original formatting when the translated text is merged back into the drawing with Translate using Translation Table tool. When you translate the translation table, do not touch these codes unless you know how to remove them and you find them unnecessary (e.g. you can remove \P which means a line break).
Here is a list of codes you can remove or add depending on context:
- \P – line break
- %%D – degree symbol
When the translation table is exported to Word format, formatting markers will have special formatting making it easy to translate the text in CAT tools. If you have selected SDL Trados Studio, memoQ or Wordfast Pro / Classic in Prepare for CAT Tool list, TransTools will use tw4winInternal style for CAD drawing formatting markers. For most of the other CAT tools (Memsource Cloud, Déjà Vu X, CafeTran Espresso, among others), it will use hidden font formatting instead. This way, formatting markers are converted into tags inside your CAT tool, making them easier to handle during translation and enabling tag verification inside your CAT tool or an external QA tool.

For memoQ users:
If you use memoQ, I have prepared a special import filter for you which will make it easier to translate the generated translation tables in Word format. In addition to handling CAD drawing formatting markers, it also converts additional codes (\P, <br>, <tab> and %%D) into blue memoQ tags. Follow these instructions to obtain and use the import filter:
- Download the filter and then extract the MQRES file from the ZIP archive.
- In memoQ, open the Resource Console and switch to Filter Configurations section.
- Click Import New.
- Choose the extracted “autocad-tables-cascading-filter.mqres”, optionally rename the filter in the next window and click OK. In the future, steps 1–4 will not need to be performed because the filter will now reside in your memoQ configuration.
- In your project, load the translation table document using Import With Options command. You will see Document Import Options dialogue. For the document, choose Cascading Filter in the Filter column, and “AutoCAD Translation Tables (cascading)” from the Configuration column. Click OK to import the document.
- Now \P and %%D codes will be shown as blue tags, while formatting codes will be shown as pink tags ({0}).
Conditional filter
Conditional filters (under “Exclude text objects matching specific conditions”) provides you with a lot of control over what text is extracted from a drawing.
When a condition matches the entire text of a CAD drawing object (like MTEXT, table cell, DIMENSION, etc.), such text will not be added to the generated translation table.
Conditions (masks) are defined using VBScript Regular Expressions syntax. For more information on how to create custom conditions, click here.
When you click Add or Edit buttons in the conditional filter (item 6 above), you will be presented with the following dialogue:
Enter the name of the condition in the Name field.
The condition itself must be entered in the Mask field. A condition is composed of segments that match a number of characters in the text. For example, 'C' matches letter 'C', and C{2,3} matches 2 or 3 letters 'C' in a given position within the text. If all segments sequentially match parts of the complete text, the condition matches the text and this text will be excluded from the Translation Table.
The Exclusion Condition Editor provides a rather basic interface for constructing conditions, but it should be adequate for most users:
- Letter(s): click this button to insert a letter, either an English letter or any letter from any alphabet. Specify how many times this letter can occur in the position within the complete text. Click Insert to insert the segment in the condition at the position of the caret;
- Digit(s): click this button to insert any digit (0-9) or one of specific digits;
- Character(s): click this button to insert any character or one of specific characters (including punctuation, special symbols, etc.).
Here are some examples of conditions that may come in handy:
[0-9]{3}\-[a-z]\-[0-9ABC/]{3,9} – this condition matches equipment numbers like '040-H-001A/B/C';
40(\-[A-Z0-9]{1,5})+ – this condition matches line numbers like '40-AM-50-50012-J10A';
(AG|UG) – this condition matches 'AG' (aboveground) or 'UG' (underground)
[a-z]{2} – this condition matches 2-letter tag numbers like 'LG' (level gauge), 'PT' (pressure transmitter), etc.
Be careful, it is better to remove unwanted rows from the generated translation table manually than to create 'loose' conditions that can prevent some translatable text from being added to the translation table.
To test the expression you created, type the text you want to skip. If you see 'Text matches mask', your condition should be complete. However, make sure your condition works correctly by clicking View Exclusions button at the bottom of Extract Translatable Text dialogue after you generate the translation table.
Click Save to save the condition, or Cancel to exit without saving changes.
For more information on Microsoft Regular Expression syntax used to construct conditions, refer to this page.
Extracting text from proxy entities (proxy objects)
There is one type of CAD drawing elements which cannot be translated using TransTools for BricsCAD if these contain text. These are proxy entities, also called “proxy graphics” or “proxy objects”. When these are present in a drawing, you will see the following dialogue upon opening a CAD drawing:
Proxy entities are drawing objects which cannot be edited in-place within BricsCAD and require a special module called “object enabler” in order to edit them. Commonly, proxy entities come from an AutoCAD product such as AutoCAD Civil 3D or an AutoCAD-compatible program. Since proxy entities cannot be edited, TransTools cannot extract text from them unless you install the appropriate object enabler or use TransTools inside an AutoCAD product that was used to prepare the drawing. To translate text inside proxy entities without an object enabler, you must find them in the model or layouts and explode them in order to split them into more primitive objects, including TEXT or MTEXT blocks. This operation changes the structure of the drawing, so you should only do this if you are sure that the translated drawing will not be used for further drawing creation. If the translated drawing is in dual language, i.e. the translated text is side by side with the source text, you can create a copy of the original proxy entity and explode that copy, from which you can get access to the internal text blocks.
At the end of text extraction, TransTools will report the number of proxy entities which were encountered within the scope of the extraction operation.
Here is a step-by-step procedure for preparing proxy entities so that you can extract translatable text and subsequently merge translations back into the drawing, using the explode technique:
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Make sure that “Show proxy graphics” option is checked in the Proxy Information dialog when you open the drawing:
If you did not check the appropriate option, proxy entities will be hidden. You need to display them by typing the following command at the command line:
PROXYSHOW
and then typing 1 to change the value. This will display proxy entities on the screen provided that the layer they are in is not hidden. -
Both in the model and in each layout, find proxy entities and explode them, or, for dual-language drawings, explode their copies.
To find all proxy entities in the model or the current layout or in the entire drawing, you can select all of them simultaneously as follows:
First, run Quick Select command by opening Properties panel and clicking the Funnel icon:
You can do the same by typing QSELECT at the command line:
In Properties panel, open the dropdown list which displays All (...) by default, and select Proxy Entity (...) from this list. All proxy entities will be selected in the entire drawing.
To explode all selected proxy entities, click Explode button located under Home tab > Modify panel:
To process proxy entities one by one, you will need to find them on the screen based on their appearance as selected objects (selected objects have a dashed outline):
Translating the translation table
There are several efficient ways to translate the translation table:
- If you do not use a CAT tool, simply translate the source text inside the 2nd column.
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If you use a CAT tool:
- If the translation table is in Word format, simply import it into your CAT tool like any document. For this to work, make sure that Extract Translatable Text tool is configured to generate a translation table for your CAT tool.
- If the translation table is in Excel format, copy the translatable cells from the 1st column to the 2nd column, then hide rows 1 to 3 and all columns except the Translation column. Translate the document in your CAT tool (the CAT tool should ignore hidden rows and columns by default). When the translated document is exported from the CAT tool, unhide the first column so that you can see both source and translation columns side by side in order to be able to copy both to the clipboard.
- If your CAT tool is not listed among the options in Extract Translatable Text tool (for translation tables in Word format) or if your CAT tool does not support hidden rows/columns in Excel, you can copy the translatable cells from the 1st column into a separate document, translate it, then paste the translations into the 2nd column of the translation table, making sure that the source and target cells align correctly.
Translating drawing(s) using Translate using Translation Table tool
To translate a drawing using the final translation table, run Translate using Translation Table tool as described above. You will see the following dialogue:
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Select one of the options depending on where the text is located:
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Option 1 - Full Layout(s) (default) – choose this option if you want to extract all text from specific layouts of the current drawing.
Check (tick off) the appropriate layouts. Use All and None buttons to check or uncheck all layouts at once.
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Option 2 - Selection(s) - choose this option if you would like to process multiple selections or layouts in the current drawing. This should be useful if your drawing has viewports and only portions of text need to be translated.
Select the appropriate layout from the drop-down list and click Select Objects... to select specific objects on this layout (see below for more information) or Select Layout to select everything on this layout. Each selection will be added to the list below, so you will be able to select as many layouts or selections as you want.
Selecting objects:
When you click Select Objects..., the dialogue will temporarily disappear and you will be able to select the desired text.
- Left-click at the top-left corner of the area you want to select, a small distance away from the very top-left object that you want to include in the selection. Then, move the mouse down and to the right until the selection fully covers the text objects, and then release click the left mouse button again. You may use the mouse wheel while dragging the mouse in order to zoom in/out on a specific area of the drawing.
- Left-click at the bottom-right corner of the area you want to select, move the mouse up and to the left until the selection at least partially overlaps all text objects you want to select, and then click the left mouse button again. With this selection method, unlike the one above, you only need to select a part of a text object and it will be included in the selection.
- Rotate the mouse wheel up or down to zoom in/out. While you do this, try to move the mouse closer to the objects you want to center the view on.
- Left-click individual objects to add them to the selection set.
- Hold down the Shift key and left-click individual objects to remove them from the selection set.
- Hold down the mouse wheel and move the mouse cursor in any direction to scroll (pan) up/down/left/right.
- Double-click the mouse wheel to zoom the drawing to its extents (i.e. zoom the screen to include the entire drawing).
Press Escape if you have selected wrong objects and would like to start again (this will return you to the Options dialogue). Press Enter when you have fully selected all objects to process (this will return you to the Options dialogue).
To remove a specific selection you made, select the item from the list and click Remove. Click Clear to remove all items if you would like to start from scratch.
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Option 3 - Many drawings – this option allows batch processing of several drawings opened in BricsCAD.
In the list you will see layouts of every drawing currently opened in the same BricsCAD application window (i.e. all drawings you can see under BricsCAD Window menu).
Check the appropriate layouts manually or click All / None buttons to check or uncheck all layouts at once.
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- Translation Table: Select the fully translated translation table file in Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel format.
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Change characters that are not supported in every font:
Use this option if your drawing uses a font like “romans” which does not include some Unicode characters like EN-dash and №, displaying question marks (?) instead. When this option is checked, TransTools will modify the translation text, replacing the specified characters with alternative text. For example, you can replace EN-dash (–) with a regular hyphen (-).
To specify replacement characters, press Configure... button. You will see the following dialogue:
All changes made in this list are automatically saved for future sessions. -
Process specific layers only: Use this option if you need to translate text that is located in specific layer(s).
When you select this option, you will see two lists.
The left-hand list is the list of layers that need to be processed. If this list is empty, all layers will be processed.
The right-hand list contains all layers within the current drawing.
Click <-Add to add a specific layer to the list of layers you want to process (left-hand list). In batch-processing mode, you can also use Add custom button to add a layer that is not present in the current drawing. Click Remove-> to remove a layer from the list of processed layers.
When the appropriate options have been selected, click Start.
If some text from the drawing was not found within the Translation Table, you will see View Skipped Text button at the bottom of the dialogue. Clicking this button will open a dialogue with a list of all such text.
To exit, click Close.
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Analyze and count tracked changes in a Microsoft Word document.
This tool is part of TransTools+
Tracked Changes Assistant provides a detailed word count report to help you estimate the translation effort and understand the extent of changes in the new revision of a Word document.
Tracked changes word count report displayed within Tracked Changes Assistant panel
Features
- Use calculated word / character counts and number of distinct additions and deletions to get a rough idea of the required translation effort.
- Use the detailed analysis report to understand what type of changes were made in order to determine the required translation effort more accurately.
- Export the tracked changes word count report to Excel or CSV (tab-delimited or semicolon-delimited) format for quote preparation.
Tracked Changes Assistant screenshots
This tool is part of TransTools+, suite of productivity tools for Microsoft Office designed for translators, editors, content creators and DTP specialists.
Miscellaneous tools
TransTools
- Accept all revisions and turn 'Track Changes' off – accept all revisions in the document and deactivate Track Changes mode
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Tracked Changes Assistant provides a detailed word count report to help you estimate the translation effort and understand the extent of changes in the new revision of a Word document.
Detailed information about Tracked Changes Assistant
- How Tracked Changes Assistant can help you in your work
- Where to find the tool
- Using Tracked Changes Assistant
- Related tools
How Tracked Changes Assistant can help you in your work
- Analyze the translation effort required to transfer tracked changes into a previous revision of a translated document: Tracked Changes Assistant displays the number of distinct changes (additions, deletions and moves) and word/character counts for these changes so you can get a rough idea how much time it will take for you to translate these changes. In addition, the report contains information about the types of changes made: how many of these changes are full paragraphs or full sentences (which can be translated in their entirety without reviewing the surrounding sentences in most cases) and how many of the changes are words or characters in the middle of existing sentences (which means that you may need to rewrite the translation of the entire sentences).
- Export the analysis report into Excel or CSV format: the word count report can be exported into Excel or CSV (tab- or semicolon-delimited) format in order to prepare accurate quotes for your customers. For example, you can use formulas inside Excel to apply special weight factors to calculate the approximate translation time.
Where to find the tool
To run Tracked Changes Assistant, click Tracked Changes Assistant button on TransTools+ ribbon:
This will open Tracked Changes Assistant pane to the right of the current document.
Using Tracked Changes Assistant
Tracked changes word count report
To generate a tracked changes word count report for the current document, open Tracked Changes Assistant panel by clicking Tracked Changes Assistant button on TransTools+ ribbon and then click Create tracked changes word count report... button. When the operation is completed, you will see a report displayed below the button:
The report provides detailed information about tracked additions (insertions), deletions and moves (when text is dragged from one place to another) in the current Word document. The information is grouped by type of change (addition, deletion or move), and you can expand or collapse individual groups if necessary. For each type of change, the report is broken down by the type of text within those changes: whole paragraphs, whole sentences, multi-word phrases, single words, characters inside words, punctuation and spaces/breaks. This information is very useful for estimation purposes because translating large changes, such as new paragraphs or sentences, is always easier than translating small changes inside existing sentences where you may need to re-translate the surrounding context as well. For each of those elements, the report provides the number of such elements, number of words, number of characters (without spaces) and number of characters with spaces, as well as the percentage of such elements among all elements. The total line provides the total word and character counts for additions, deletions and moves. Finally, for each type of change, the total number of distinct changes is provided to help you estimate the translation effort more accurately: again, translating a single 2-paragraph block inserted into the text is easier than translating the same paragraphs which are inserted into 2 different parts of the document, since it will take you extra time to insert them correctly.
Word count report details
If additional tracked changes are introduced in the document, you can always refresh the word count report by clicking Update tracked changes word count report... button.
Exporting the word count report
To export the word count report, click Export... button at the bottom of the Tracked Changes Assistant panel. This will open the Export Options dialogue:
Using the Export Options dialogue, you can specify the format of the export file:
- To export the report in CSV format which can be opened in Microsoft Excel, other spreadsheet editing programs or even a simple text editor, select CSV option. CSV files can be generated using two different separators: tab character or semicolon. By default, Tracked Changes Assistant will use tabs as a separator, but you can select semicolon if needed.
- To export the report in Microsoft Excel format, select Excel option. The export file can be saved in XLSX (default) or XLS format depending on the file extension you specify and the version of Microsoft Excel you are using.
Once you export the word count report and open it in your spreadsheet editing application like Excel or Google Sheets, you can create a weighted word count using formulas in order to estimate the translation effort more accurately. Here are some ideas for weight factors:
- The number of distinct additions, deletions and moves can be multiplied by some fixed rate or word count since it will take you time to review each change before creating or updating the translation.
- Use a custom weight factor for multi-word phrases, single words, characters inside words, punctuation and spaces/breaks inside additions in order to calculate the weighted number of words/characters. Note that the word count for characters inside words, punctuation and spaces/breaks is 0, so your weight factor should be based on the number of characters with spaces, not words.
- For deletions, the word count has little importance, and the number of distinct deletions is much more important for determining the amount of work. However, the count of words in deletions is somewhat important for small changes like multi-word phrases, single words, characters inside words, punctuation and spaces/breaks because this means that you will need to update the translation of the existing sentences.
Miscellaneous tools
TransTools
- Accept all revisions and turn 'Track Changes' off – accept all revisions in the document and deactivate Track Changes mode
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