Documentation Center

TM maintenance

Translation memories are created and maintained in the Translation Memories view. Depending on your level of access, you can perform the following tasks in the Translation Memories view:

  • Create a translation memory
  • Open a translation memory
  • Edit and delete translation units in the translation memory
  • Assign custom field values to translation units
  • Search and filter the translation memory data
  • Import content into a translation memory
  • Export content from a translation memory
  • Create language resource templates
  • Upgrade translation memories from SDL Trados 2007 and SDLX 2007
  • Align existing translated documents in the Alignment Tool and send the alignment results to a translation memory

Translation memories

A translation memory is a file or database containing source language segments and translated versions of the segments. A single source and target language segment pair is known as a translation unit (TU). A translation memory also holds other information for each TU. For example, the date the TU was created, who created it, when it was last modified and who by. In addition to a standard set of information provided by the system, you can also create new fields to hold TU information. For example, you might want to store a cost or project code with each TU. These are known as custom fields.

The purpose of a translation memory is to reduce the amount of time and effort involved in translating new documents by enabling you to reuse previous translations. When you are translating documents in the Editor view, you can work interactively with the contents of the translation memory as you translate documents.