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Aligning single-pair file

Align single files when you want to pair one source file to its corresponding target file, and generate one single alignment result (*.sdlalign) file. By default, Trados Studio aligns all your files for further review by generating an *.sdlalign result file that you can then open in the Alignment view.

About this task

By default, when you align a single-file pair, Trados Studio automatically opens the *.sdlalign file for review in the Alignment view. Here you can edit the connections and the segment content, as well as save the alignment file as *.sdlxliff for extra editing or QA check in the Editor view.

To align one pair of documents and review the alignment result in the Alignment view, specify:

  • The translation memory (TM) where you want to send the translation units (TUs) that result from the alignment
  • The source file and the target file that will generate the alignment result file

Procedure

  1. On the Welcome or the Translation Memories view, on the Home tab, select Align Documents > Align Single File Pair.
  2. In the Align Documents dialog, choose the TM you want to use for the alignment results:
    • Select Create to use a new TM. Choose the TM type where you want to store the alignment results and fill-in the details.
    • Select Add to use an existing TM. Choose the TM type where you want to store the alignment results and fill-in the details.
  3. Optionally, select Settings to edit translation TM settings such as: custom fields, language resources, access rights and performance.

    By default, Trados Studio tags each TU generated from the alignment with three custom fields: Quality, Source File and Target File. The Quality field shows how confident Trados Studio is that the source and target segment are aligned correctly. The quality score is calculated based on the internal alignment algorithm which considers linguistic and contextual dependencies between the source and target segments in the file. The Source and Target File fields show the location of the files that generated the TU.

  4. Select Browse under the Source File box and select the required source file.
  5. Select Browse under the Target File box and select the file that you want to map to the previously selected source file.
  6. Select Finish to start the automatic alignment and open the result in the Alignment view. By default, Trados Studio generates an alignment result file (*.sdlalign) from the two files and names it [name of the source file]_[name of the target file]. The file is saved in the Alignment Results folder.