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Align excel files and store them in the workbench
Thread poster: cniederalt
cniederalt
cniederalt
Germany
Local time: 15:34
German to English
+ ...
Jun 3, 2008

Hello,

I am pretty new to working with Trados and since my company decided I won't get any training in the program, I am forced to get the hang of Trados by trial-and-error.

I have been working pretty successfully with Word documents in the workbench so far but now I've done a translation in Excel, which I would also like to align and store in my TM database. I just can't seem to work out a way to do this.

Could someone point me in the right direction, pl... See more
Hello,

I am pretty new to working with Trados and since my company decided I won't get any training in the program, I am forced to get the hang of Trados by trial-and-error.

I have been working pretty successfully with Word documents in the workbench so far but now I've done a translation in Excel, which I would also like to align and store in my TM database. I just can't seem to work out a way to do this.

Could someone point me in the right direction, please? Thanks so much. ▲ Collapse
 
Selcuk Akyuz
Selcuk Akyuz  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 16:34
English to Turkish
+ ...
WinAlign User Guide Jun 3, 2008

I have SDL Trados 2006 and the manual is located in C:\Program Files\SDL International\T2006_FL\Doc\English

Any questions which were not explained in the guide?
 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 15:34
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Transform the Excel contents in RTF files via Word Jun 3, 2008

cniederalt wrote:
I have been working pretty successfully with Word documents in the workbench so far but now I've done a translation in Excel, which I would also like to align and store in my TM database. I just can't seem to work out a way to do this.


Yes, I think Winalign is the solution. However, it is true that Winalign does not take Excel file as far as I know. So the solution might be to copy the contents of the Excel sheets to Word, save them as RTF files (both in the source and target versions), and then use WinAlign to align the RTF files.

As for how to use WinAlign, I think it is simple enough of you follow the instructions. Feel free to ask if you run into big trouble!

[Edited at 2008-06-03 08:15]
 
Attila Piróth
Attila Piróth  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 15:34
Member
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Direct solution Jun 3, 2008

If each pair of cells contains a translation unit (1 source language sentence in one cell and the corresponding translation in the other), then there is a simple solution using the concatenate function of Excel, see http://www.proz.com/forum/sdl_trados_support/59306-creating_tm_by_aligning_excel_rows.html#451872 (and other posts in the sam... See more
If each pair of cells contains a translation unit (1 source language sentence in one cell and the corresponding translation in the other), then there is a simple solution using the concatenate function of Excel, see http://www.proz.com/forum/sdl_trados_support/59306-creating_tm_by_aligning_excel_rows.html#451872 (and other posts in the same string).
If the cells contain several sentences, you will need to align them. Winalign! is certainly an option - but is no match to the alignment solution of Wordfast/PlusTools, which is free. You can find detailed instructions in the Wordfast manual - but its use is quite intuitive.
HTH
Attila ▲ Collapse
 
Selcuk Akyuz
Selcuk Akyuz  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 16:34
English to Turkish
+ ...
WinAlign can align Excel files Jun 3, 2008

Tomás Cano Binder wrote:

However, it is true that Winalign does not take Excel file as far as I know. So the solution might be to copy the contents of the Excel sheets to Word, save them as RTF files (both in the source and target versions), and then use WinAlign to align the RTF files.



Following file types can be aligned by WinAlign (see WinAlign Help file)

WinAlign Project: General Tab

Word Documents (*.rtf)
Online Help Files (*.rtf)
Word Documents (*.doc)
HTML Files (*.htm, *.html, *.asp, *.jsp, *.aspx, *ascx, *.inc)
SGML Files (*.sgm, *.sgml)
XML and XLIFF Files (*.xml, *.xsl, *.xlf)
PowerPoint (*.ppt, *.pps, *.pot)
Excel (*.xls, *.xlt)
Windows Binary files (*.exe, *.dll, *.ocx)
Java Properties files (*.properties)
RC files (*.rc, *dlg)
InDesign CS 2 Interchange file (*.inx)
Generic Delimited Documents (*.csv, *.cat)
TRADOStag documents (*.ttx)
 
cniederalt
cniederalt
Germany
Local time: 15:34
German to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
WinAlign won't accept my excel files Jun 3, 2008

That's exactly my problem: WinAlign won't accept my excel files. In the list from which I have to choose the format of my document, Excel files are not an option. But copying the text into an rtf-file sounds like a good idea. Thank you.
 
Oscar Martin
Oscar Martin
Spain
Local time: 15:34
English to Spanish
+ ...
Align excel files and store them in the workbench Jun 3, 2008

Hi,

You could try to convert the xls files into ttx (TagEditor) files and then you can align the ttx files. To convert the xls into ttx, you must create an empty TM for each language and then translate without selecting the option "Segment unknown sentences" but select Don't update the file.

Regards,

Oscar
 
Selcuk Akyuz
Selcuk Akyuz  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 16:34
English to Turkish
+ ...
What is your Trados version Jun 3, 2008

cniederalt wrote:

That's exactly my problem: WinAlign won't accept my excel files. In the list from which I have to choose the format of my document, Excel files are not an option.



I use SDL Trados 2006 and excel files are supported by WinAlign.
 
František Vaško
František Vaško
Slovakia
Local time: 15:34
English to Slovak
+ ...
Trados 2007 Pro supports xls as well Jun 3, 2008

SDL Trados 2007 Professional supports .xls files as well. These files are automatically preprocessed while aligning, saved into .ttx files and these .ttx files are then aligned. That might also be the best solution for You if Your Trados version does not support .xls files. (create .ttx files from them...)
 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 15:34
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
WinAlign does accept Excel in version 2007 Jun 3, 2008

Selcuk Akyuz wrote:
Following file types can be aligned by WinAlign (see WinAlign Help file)
WinAlign Project: General Tab
...
Excel (*.xls, *.xlt)


Oh my. Yes you are right. Honestly we have never had a need to align Excel files. Thanks for the hint and sorry for adding an incorrect statement.
 
cniederalt
cniederalt
Germany
Local time: 15:34
German to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Trados version Jun 3, 2008

I use the WinAlign version WinAlign, Version 7.x Freelance from the SDL Trados 2006 package.
In the dropdown menu from which to choose the file type, the following is mentioned:
Word-Dokumente (*.rtf)
Online-Hilfedateien (*.rtf)
Word-Dokumente (*.doc)
HTML-Dateien (*.htm, *.html, *.asp, *.jsp, *.aspx, *ascx, *.inc)
SGML-Dateien (*.sgm; *.sgml)
XML- und XLIFF-Dokumente (*.xml;*.xsl;*.xlf)
TRADOStag-Dokumente (*.ttx)
No mention of xls-files or... See more
I use the WinAlign version WinAlign, Version 7.x Freelance from the SDL Trados 2006 package.
In the dropdown menu from which to choose the file type, the following is mentioned:
Word-Dokumente (*.rtf)
Online-Hilfedateien (*.rtf)
Word-Dokumente (*.doc)
HTML-Dateien (*.htm, *.html, *.asp, *.jsp, *.aspx, *ascx, *.inc)
SGML-Dateien (*.sgm; *.sgml)
XML- und XLIFF-Dokumente (*.xml;*.xsl;*.xlf)
TRADOStag-Dokumente (*.ttx)
No mention of xls-files or else although the help menue tells me they should be there. ▲ Collapse
 
FarkasAndras
FarkasAndras  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:34
English to Hungarian
+ ...
easy Jun 4, 2008

... if you are happy with 1 cell becoming 1 segment in your TM. (I.e. if each cell contains one sentence or unit)

Arrange all source cells into one column, arrange all matching target cells into another column (if they were not like that already). They'll obviously have to be side by side, matching.

Make a txt export from trados and open it in a text editor. Scroll down to the actual text, have a look at the simple tag system it uses. That's what you'll have to recreat... See more
... if you are happy with 1 cell becoming 1 segment in your TM. (I.e. if each cell contains one sentence or unit)

Arrange all source cells into one column, arrange all matching target cells into another column (if they were not like that already). They'll obviously have to be side by side, matching.

Make a txt export from trados and open it in a text editor. Scroll down to the actual text, have a look at the simple tag system it uses. That's what you'll have to recreate in excel, then copy the whole thing over to ms word, replace ^t with ^p to get line breaks, copy the whole thing over under the header of your export in notepad, save and import into a trados memory. May sound complicated but it's pretty simple.
I can post a sample if needed. The good thing is you're in complete control and if sg goes wrong it's easy to correct it.


DO NOT USE WINALIGN. It is outrageously bad.
I find the europarl tokenizer and hunalign (both free to dl) work best for aligning anything more than a few sentences.

But if you have your text segmented, in an excel table, don't shoot yourself in the foot by using an aligner. The job is basically done, don't use crappy software to painstakingly redo it worse.

[Edited at 2008-06-04 07:31] ▲ Collapse
 
RWS Community
RWS Community
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:34
English
SDL Trados 2006... Jun 4, 2008

Hello All,

I would recommend you save the files as TTX and then align them, as Oscar recommended. Can you open xls files in TagEditor?

Many Thanks,

Gareth Powell


[Edited at 2008-06-04 10:02]
 


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Align excel files and store them in the workbench







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