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Starting new translations

SDL Trados Studio enables you to start new translations in several ways depending on the complexity and scope of the translation.

New translations can be started when you:
  • Create a translation project by selecting File > New > New Project.
  • Drag files for translation on the on the Welcome screen to use the Translate Single Document workflow.

The two methods are described below.

New Project

Use this command to create multiple new translations by creating a project using the New Project wizard. This allows you to specify settings while creating the translation, such as the source and target language of the translation, project file settings, which termbase to use, which translation memories (TMs) to apply and which TM options to use.

Translate Single Document

Use the Translate Single Document command to quickly open a file and start a new translation. You can also open a file for translation by drag-and-dropping it from your computer into the Editor View Navigation Pane or into the Editor Window.

Starting a translation using this method bypasses the selections you make when using the New Project wizard and you can. For example, you do not specify settings for pre-translation. Using the Translate Single Document command, you can create and save an *.sdlxliff file which contains source language segments only and then, from this, create further *.sdlxliff files which have a target language assigned to them.

Once you have created the *.sdlxliff file, you can modify TM settings using the Project Settings dialog.

What happens when you create a new translation

When you open a source language file for the first time, SDL Trados Studio recognizes that this is a new translation and automatically:

  • Takes the content of the source language document and breaks it down into segments.
  • Places the document segments in an *.sdlxliff file.
  • Applies TM to the document segments (if a TM is open).

SDL Trados Studio automatically identifies the appropriate encoding for the language you are translating the file into.

*.sdlxliff files

*.sdlxliff is an XML based bilingual file format, specially developed for use in localization. It is bilingual because it contains both the source document and the document translation in a single file. When an *.sdlxliff file is displayed in the Editor window of the Editor view, the source document text is displayed on the left of the Editor window and the target version of the text is displayed on the right.

When you save an *.sdlxliff file, the *.sdlxliff extension is added to the name of the source language document being translated. For example, a source document named Sample.doc would be saved as Sample.doc.SDLXLIFF.

File segmentation

When you open a document in the Editor view, the content is partitioned into segments, which can be matched against translation units (TUs) in a TM . Usually the segmentation rules used to parse the file are the same as those used to create the TUs.

  • Each segment is displayed in a separate box.
  • The segments are displayed in the order in which they appear in the document and are numbered sequentially.