Documentation Center

Step 7: Reusing previously translated files (PerfectMatch)

Use PerfectMatch to automatically translate project files which are related to other, previously translated files, for example previous versions of the same file.

About this task

If you have the bilingual files of a previously translated project, which is similar or identical to the one you want to create or currently work on, PerfectMatch can extract translations from the bilingual files and apply them to the new project files.

If the files of your new project have the same file names and path location within the project as the files in the previous project, you can select these files using the Matching Previous Documents from Folder option. If the files of your new project do not have the same file names as the ones in the previous project, you can select these files using Specific Previous Document and Previous Documents from Map.

Procedure

  1. On the PerfectMatch page of the Create a New Project wizard, select Add, and choose an option to determine how you want to manage the previously translated files:
    • Select Matching Previous Documents from Folder - Browse to the required location, select the folder, and then select OK. The New Project wizard searches the folder and all sub-folders for matching previous bilingual files automatically and adds these to your project.

      Even though you have selected a specific target language, the wizard will still add any matching bilingual files that it finds for the other target languages in your folder. If the wizard finds other *.sdlxliff files that do not match the file names in your project, it displays an error message stating the number of files it has been unable to add out of the number of files found.

    • Select Specific Previous Document to add previous bilingual files manually. - Browse to the required location, select the previous bilingual file, and select Open.
    • Select Previous Documents from Map to avoid adding each previous bilingual file manually. - If file names have changed since previous projects but the files still match in content, you can add a map file. You must add a separate map file for each target language. Browse to the required location, select the map file and select Open.
    The previously translated bilingual files are displayed in the Previous Document column next to the corresponding project file.
  2. You can choose a translation origin and a status for the translations which are extracted from the previously translated files and then applied to the new project files. Under After Matching, select:
    • Lock segments if you apply PerfectMatch from a project which has fully reviewed translations. This will mark all approved translations as PerfectMatch with a status of Signed Off.
    • Keep initial segment origin and status if you want to use the same origin, status, score and target comments as the original document.
  3. Select Next.