The Simulation/Debug Dialog

Select Tools, then Options, then Simulation/Debug, to open the dialog to configure a simulated translation. This dialog also opens if you mark a translation list and then click Home tab > Simulate Translation .

Simulate Translation

If this radio button is activated, a target file containing systematic changes to the source strings is created. The following options allow you to control the manner in which the target strings are to be generated.

If you enter a value greater than 100 % (200 % maximum) in one of the Change string length to fields, all the text resources will be lengthened accordingly by adding underlines ( _ ) after the string. There are three different entries for source strings of different lengths. To enlarge the dialog controls by the amount specified in the third field, select the option Resize dialog controls.

In the fields Pre-text string and Post-text string you can add additional characters that will then be added before or after each text resource. Click on the small black triangle next to the field to insert a placeholder for the string ID, the string number or the source string, or a random character.

The option Generate language specific characters can be used to add accents to certain characters (particularly to vowels), depending on the language. The example illustrates how an "a" is replaced with an "ä" when translating from English to German. Vice versa, when translating from German to English, the accents are removed. This way, you can check whether the application correctly supports special characters. The character map that defines the mapping of characters is in the same format as a SDL Passolo glossary and can be edited using the Glossary Editor (see the Editing glossaries section under Editing the glossary list)

Activate the Don't change translated strings option if you only want to generate simulated translations for untranslated strings. Already translated strings are then taken "as is".

If you have already generated a conventional target file, you can activate the checkbox Append "-sim" to target filename to prevent this file from being overwritten by the simulated translation. If, for example, you have a regular target file named, APPLDEU.EXE, the simulated translation file will be designated as APPLDEU-SIM.EXE.

Debug

If you activate this radio button, you can generate a target file containing no resources that are longer than those in the associated source strings. Use this option if the application you translated does not run properly or the system crashes. Such errors may be the result of memory areas that have been overwritten. The following three options are available:

Do not extend strings

Passolo only translates resources that are not longer than the source string. If a translation exceeds the source string length, the source string is merely copied.

Do not change string lengths

Passolo only translates resources that are not longer than the source string. If a translation is shorter, the difference is made up with spaces so that the source and target strings remain the same length.

Keep source strings

Passolo ignores all translations and merely copies all source strings.