Segmenting Assets
Before WorldServer presents an asset to a translator for translation, it segments the asset. The process of segmentation is performed by a filter appropriate to the file type of the asset. The purpose of segmentation is to extract the translatable text from the document and isolate this content from the markup. The translator is then simply presented the translatable text and does not have to know about nor pay attention to the structural information in the document.
This provides many benefits including:
- You, the translator, can focus on doing what you do best: translating content. You do not have to know much about the format of the content you are working on.
- As a side effect of the previous point, you are presented with a consistent view for all file types. You don't have to work in one tool for FrameMaker files, another tool for Microsoft Word, and yet another tool for HTML. You have a consistent experience and access to all of the same tools, independent of the file type you are working on.
- In addition, you can get translation memory leverage across different file types. By focusing on the translatable content, WorldServer can identify that a particular sentence in a Word document is similar to a sentence in an HTML document, and can offer this to you to help your translation.
- You are prevented from making changes that could otherwise corrupt the content. For example, in an XML file, accidentally changing a tag can render the entire XML file invalid. WorldServer protects the translator from making these sorts of changes.
The process of segmentation includes three major steps:
- Breaking the asset into segments containing translatable text and non-translatable text
- Leveraging these segments against a translation memory
- Calculating the leverage rates for each segment to generate a scoping report
You can explicitly force segmentation to happen (for example, by using the
Segment Asset step in a workflow). But segmentation also happens as a built-in part of several operations. If an asset has not previously been segmented and you performs one of the following actions, segmentation will run:
- Opening an asset in the Browser Workbench
- Generating a scoping report for an asset
- Exporting an asset to a translation kit