What CAT Tools would you use in this case (Excel multilingual files) Thread poster: Maurizio Valente
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I don't consider myself an "advanced user" of CAT Tools, therefore I am applying to more expert peers.
I have to edit or translate a set of Excel files having the following (repetitive) structure:
ID - En - Sp - Po - Ge - It -Ru -Empty- En - Sp - Po - Ge - It -Ru -- En - Sp - Po - Ge - It -Ru - etc.
(En = English, source language; Sp, Po .. Ru = destination languages)
The following is a (truncated) row sample. (I used a comma as delimiter, so e... See more I don't consider myself an "advanced user" of CAT Tools, therefore I am applying to more expert peers.
I have to edit or translate a set of Excel files having the following (repetitive) structure:
ID - En - Sp - Po - Ge - It -Ru -Empty- En - Sp - Po - Ge - It -Ru -- En - Sp - Po - Ge - It -Ru - etc.
(En = English, source language; Sp, Po .. Ru = destination languages)
The following is a (truncated) row sample. (I used a comma as delimiter, so each string, full or empty, represents a cell). Imagine to have several dozens of such rows for each Excel file.
34, New Standard in Digital, Nuevo estándar en digital, Um novo padrão digital, Neuer Standard im Digitalem, Nuovo standard del digitale, Ny standard för digital, Новый стандарт в цифровом виде, , Modular and Scaleable – protecting your investment, Modular y dimensionable – protege su inversión, Modular e dimensionável - preserva seu investimento, Modular und vergrößerbar – Ihre Investition schützend , Modulare ed espandibile - protegge il Suo investimento, modulär och skalbar – skyddar din investering, Модульный и изменяемый - он защищает Ваши инвестиции, , Latest digital technology and performance, La más avanzada tecnología digital y desempeño , A mais avançada tecnologia e desempenho digital, Die neueste Digitaltechnologie und Leistung, La tecnologia più avanzata e alte prestazioni , senaste digitala teknik och prestanda, последняя технология и цифровое исполнение etc.
(Please don't focus on translation quality, I know it should be improved)
In other terms, it is not a matter of overwriting: I have to write (or edit) the translation in Cell #6, #14, #22 etc..
And now the Big Question: What CAT Tool would you use (if any)? How would you organise the project? Did you ever come across with similar projects (and what approach did you choose)?
TIA for any help. ▲ Collapse
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| I stayed in Excel | Mar 24, 2004 |
Hi, Maurizio.
I had to work on similar files in the past, with the explicit request of not altering the format. They were not too large, so I did not miss using a CAT tool.
I stayed in Excel, temporarily hiding the columns for the languages I was not involved in and kept visibile only the En and It columns.
If the size of the work would justify the use of a CAT tool, however, I would create separate files/tables for each En-It pair (i.e. a file for cols. 2+6, anot... See more Hi, Maurizio.
I had to work on similar files in the past, with the explicit request of not altering the format. They were not too large, so I did not miss using a CAT tool.
I stayed in Excel, temporarily hiding the columns for the languages I was not involved in and kept visibile only the En and It columns.
If the size of the work would justify the use of a CAT tool, however, I would create separate files/tables for each En-It pair (i.e. a file for cols. 2+6, another for cols. 9+13, etc.) to process in the CAT tool, pasting back the translation in the relevant column in the complete Excel file.
But maybe someone can suggest a less manual method?
Roberta ▲ Collapse
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Endre Both 
Germany
Local time: 12:53
English to German
Here's the DéjàVu method, if I remember it correctly:
If you set the font color of a part of your Excel file to red, DéjàVu will omit this part when so instructed before importing the file.
So you'd have to color everything red apart from the target column(s) (which should already contain the _source_ text).
This works of course only if the file to translate does not use different font colors.
Another possibility is to prepare a special "translat... See more Here's the DéjàVu method, if I remember it correctly:
If you set the font color of a part of your Excel file to red, DéjàVu will omit this part when so instructed before importing the file.
So you'd have to color everything red apart from the target column(s) (which should already contain the _source_ text).
This works of course only if the file to translate does not use different font colors.
Another possibility is to prepare a special "translation" file in which you delete everything but the column(s) to translate. After translation, you copy this column into the appropriate place in the original file. The advantage of this method is that it should work with the CAT tool of your choice.
Endre
EB Communications ▲ Collapse
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Petty Polmann
Germany
Local time: 12:53
Member (2004)
German to Spanish
+ ...
| Sysfilter for Excel | Mar 24, 2004 |
Maybe this tool is helpful.
I have developed this filter for large Excel files with many worksheets.
The trial version is free.
Description:
Sysfilter for Excel exports texts from Microsoft Excel format to RTF format (Microsoft Word 2000 or 2002). The exported texts can be translated or edited in Microsoft Word. Once you have finished translation, Sysfilter for Excel automatically imports the translated texts back into the original Microsoft Excel fi... See more Maybe this tool is helpful.
I have developed this filter for large Excel files with many worksheets.
The trial version is free.
Description:
Sysfilter for Excel exports texts from Microsoft Excel format to RTF format (Microsoft Word 2000 or 2002). The exported texts can be translated or edited in Microsoft Word. Once you have finished translation, Sysfilter for Excel automatically imports the translated texts back into the original Microsoft Excel files.
For further information take a look at my homepage:
http://www.ecm-e.de/engl/Prod_S4E.htm
Best regards
Wilhelm Polmann
ECM-Engineering
Translation Engineering
Trados Schulungen
Wilhelm Polmann (tekom)
mailto: [email protected]
http://www.ecm-engineering.de ▲ Collapse
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| with Wordfast (or any other) and some copy/paste | Mar 24, 2004 |
Hello Maurizio
I had to do a similar job in the past, too. But I had to fill only one of the target languages. As the job was quite large and contained a lot of repetitions, I worked with Wordfast in Word.
First, I added a new column at the begin of the Excel file (a copy of it) and numbered the rows from 1 to nn (to be able to reorganize the sheets in the end as they were originally).
Then I sorted the sheet, so that the empty target cells were all together at t... See more Hello Maurizio
I had to do a similar job in the past, too. But I had to fill only one of the target languages. As the job was quite large and contained a lot of repetitions, I worked with Wordfast in Word.
First, I added a new column at the begin of the Excel file (a copy of it) and numbered the rows from 1 to nn (to be able to reorganize the sheets in the end as they were originally).
Then I sorted the sheet, so that the empty target cells were all together at the bottom. With the already translated terms (at the top of the sheet) I generated a TM, which I merged with an existing TM.
Then I copied the source column to Word and transformed the table into text (Wordfast is faster in text than in tables).
Now I began to translate. The first segments were all 100 % matches and I was able to edit and update the TM where necessary. During translation I added terms into the quality check glossary for controlling term consistency.
Once the translation was finished, checked and the file cleaned up, I copy/pasted the target back into Excel and using the first numbered column I resorted the sheet, in order to obtain the same order of the rows as originally and then I deleted the numbered column.
As I had few but large files and there were not too many sheets per file, this workaround did not take too much time. If you have a lot of different short files, this method may be too time-consuming.
An advanced user would certainly make a Macro in order to accelerate the "handwork" in the Excel file. I don't know the above mentioned Sysfilter from Wilhelm Polmann, maybe you could combine these methods.
Good luck.
Daniel Hartmeier
PS: Wordfast manages also Excel files (using Word) but as I also wanted to keep the original Excel file open for reference, this was not possible. ▲ Collapse
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Hi,
I'd use DVX, as it can manage multilingual translations, databases and memories.
Giuliana
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 12:53
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Wordfast plus seperate worksheets in Excel | Mar 24, 2004 |
Maurizio Valente wrote:
I have to edit or translate a set of Excel files having the following (repetitive) structure...
I would create an Excel sheet with multiple worksheets and do one language combination's column at a time, and then just cut-paste the translation into the appropriate column in the master worksheet.
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| How can you hide columns in Excel? | Mar 24, 2004 |
I tried to hide a column with Format/Cell Format/Font, but I couldn't find "Hidden".
[quote]Roberta Anderson wrote:
I stayed in Excel, temporarily hiding the columns for the languages I was not involved in and kept visibile only the En and It columns.
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| how to hide columns | Mar 25, 2004 |
Maurizio Valente wrote:
I tried to hide a column with Format/Cell Format/Font, but I couldn't find "Hidden".
Select the column or columns by clicking in their header, then right-click to get the context-sensitive menu and chose Nascondi (in English it might be Hide or similar) towards the bottom of the menu.
To show them again, select the 2 columns on either side of the hidden range, right-click and choose Scopri (in English it might be Show, or similar).
ciao,
Roberta
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Thanks to everybody for their useful suggestions. I see there are several ways, and each approach may be more convenient in a given situation. In the next future, I will explore them all. I am saving this page on my hard disk.
For my current project (involving both editing and translating anew in the Italian columns), I chose to follow this procedure:
1) Create a new (temporary) file, temporary.xls, containing English (source language) columns only, from the original ... See more Thanks to everybody for their useful suggestions. I see there are several ways, and each approach may be more convenient in a given situation. In the next future, I will explore them all. I am saving this page on my hard disk.
For my current project (involving both editing and translating anew in the Italian columns), I chose to follow this procedure:
1) Create a new (temporary) file, temporary.xls, containing English (source language) columns only, from the original file, realthing.xls.
2) Creating an old DV project for Excel files
3) Importing temporary.xls in DV, translating and exporting.
4) Hiding Spanish, Portuguese etc columns (but not the English ones, as they serve as a visual reference) in realthing.xls
5)Copying & Pasting each column in temporary.xls into the proper locations in realthing.xls.
6)Unhiding any previously hidden columns.
This is only one of the possible alternatives, and I am not saying it is the best.
Many thanks again!
PS In my case, the translation I had to edit was so poor I could completely ignore it. (Fortunately, the client accepted an hourly rate).
In cases where the translation quality is satisfactory, I might have created a DV Excel project for the Italian-Italian combination. In this case I would follow a similar procedure, but with step 1 altered as follows:
1) Create a new (temporary) file, temporary.xls, containing Italian (target language) columns only, from the original file, realthing.xls.
[Edited at 2004-03-25 07:53]
[Edited at 2004-03-25 07:59] ▲ Collapse
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