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Glossary

Codepage

The ANSI codepage uses 8 bits for the encoding of characters, and thus can display 256 different characters. That means it only contains a limited number of extra characters in addition to the standard characters A-Z. A codepage specifies which letters are assigned to each character code. For example, there is a codepage for European languages containing characters like ä, ú or î and another codepage that contains all the characters for Russian.

In order to display an ANSI-encoded text correctly, it is necessary to know which codepage was used. For a list of the codepages used in MS Windows, see the Codepages section.

DBCS

DBCS (Double Byte Character Set) is a character set in which a character is represented by one or two bytes. This character set is used, for example, in the Japanese version of Windows 95. Different codepages also describe different DBCS character sets. As a result, it can be difficult to transfer DBCS strings between systems with different standard codepages.

Properties window

A dockable window in which the properties of an object (string list, language, resource, source string or translation string) can be displayed and edited.

It is opened by double-clicking an object or by selecting the Properties command in the shortcut menu of the object. If the Properties window is already open, it is enough to simply select the object.

The properties window for translation lists is also referred to as the "translation window"

Glossary files

A SDL Passolo glossary file is a text file containing strings in different languages. These tables are used for automatic translation.

Project window

The first window displayed when Passolo opens a project. This window lists all the source files, languages and string lists contained in the project and provides an overview of the current project status. This is the central point from which string list windows are opened. In order to perform operations on multiple string lists, they have to be carried out in the project window.

Source file

A source file is a program file to be translated in Passolo. The file type depends on the parser. For example, the source files for WIN32 are usually .EXE files or .DLL runtime libraries, whereas the source files for the text parser are (structured) text files. The source file may also refer to a database or an SQL query when working with the database parser.

The purpose of Passolo is to localize these source files. The translated version of the source file is referred to as the target file.

Source string list

The source string list contains all the string resources from a source file that require localization. You can also edit the source string list in order to hide specific strings or exclude them from the translation process.

Resource

The strings contained in a source file are generally grouped as resources. These may be dialogs, menus or some other grouping. Some resources such as bitmaps do not contain strings and are then processed as objects.

Resource ID

Each resource in a source file is assigned an identifier (ID). This may be a number or a designator. If possible, a unique ID should be used to ensure that resources can be identified uniquely.

Language ID

Under Windows, each language is assigned a unique number. This "Language ID" is made up of a primary ID and a sub ID. In most cases it is not necessary to enter these values explicitly, since Passolo contains a list of the languages supported by Windows. However, Passolo does offer the option of entering language IDs directly since additional languages that are currently not covered may be added. You can find a list of the supported languages codes in programming guides or on the Web, for example at http://www.microsoft.com/opentype/otspec/lcid-cp.txt.

String

Passolo refers to the smallest translatable unit of text within a source file as a string. All strings are display and can be edited in the string list window. Each string is assigned to a resource. Strings in a source string list are also called source strings whereas strings in a translation list are referred to as translation string.

String list window

Window in Passolo in which one or more string lists are displayed. On the left there is a tree structure showing all the related resources and on the right a list containing the strings.

Unicode

A 16 bit character set that supports the display of characters in any language (including Chinese and Japanese). Generally, resource strings are saved in Unicode.

Target file

A target file is the localized version of a source file. Generally, this is a copy of the source file in which all the resources and strings have been translated to a target language.

Translation list

A target file is the localized version of a source file. Generally, this is a copy of the source file in which all the resources and strings have been translated to a target language.

Translation list

A string list containing all the strings of a source file as source string/translation pairs. The translator edits the strings in the column for the target language. A fully edited translation list thus contains all strings in both languages.

Translation window

Another name for the properties window belonging to a translation list.

SDLXLIFF

*. Sdlxliff is an XLIFF format, compliant with XLIFF version 1.2.

SDL has added some standards compliant proprietary extensions.

When you add a translatable item to a project in Trados Studio, Trados Studio converts the item into an *.sdlxliff format file, and preforms all subsequent translation work on the *.sdlxliff file. For example, when you use a Translation Editor, you edit an *.sdlxliff file, and you save the result also as an *.sdlxliff file. The *.sdlxliff file has the same name as the source item but with an added file extension .sdlxliff.

At the end of the project, or when the user generates a final format for review, the translated text is extracted and converted to the destination file format. Usually, the *.sdlxliff working file is kept intact.