Excel file too large to work with Trados 2007
Thread poster: Helen Matthews
Helen Matthews
Helen Matthews  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:53
Member (2008)
Italian to English
+ ...
Oct 6, 2009

Hi,

Don't know if anyone could help but would really appreciate any suggestions!

I've been given a manual to translate, but it's in excel format and very large. Even when I've taken out the images, Trados still hasn't managed to analyse it (so I daren't start translating it with tag editor, as I seriously doubt it'll manage a clean up at the end!)

Hope someone out there can help as I'd really like to use Trados to translate it...

Thanks!
... See more
Hi,

Don't know if anyone could help but would really appreciate any suggestions!

I've been given a manual to translate, but it's in excel format and very large. Even when I've taken out the images, Trados still hasn't managed to analyse it (so I daren't start translating it with tag editor, as I seriously doubt it'll manage a clean up at the end!)

Hope someone out there can help as I'd really like to use Trados to translate it...

Thanks!

Helen
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Richard Hall
Richard Hall  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 23:53
Italian to English
+ ...
Wordfast Oct 6, 2009

IF you are familiar with wordfast, I would use that. I've also had problems with big excel files in tageditor and was very much surprised that wordfast had no problems at all. Also the fact that you see the translations of the excel file as it works means that it is easier to control output.

 
Helen Matthews
Helen Matthews  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:53
Member (2008)
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Never used/don't own Wordfast Oct 6, 2009

thanks for the suggestion - I certainly didn't know that Wordfast could handle bigger files than Trados and will now look into it!

Unfortunately, I've never used Wordfast and don't own it at present, so I don't think it'll help me in this case...

Thanks again

Helen


 
Richard Hall
Richard Hall  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 23:53
Italian to English
+ ...
Split the excel file Oct 6, 2009

Before I discovered the wordfast trick, I used to split up the excel file basically creating a separate workbook for each sheet. and then amalgamating them after the translation.

Another thing I found was that sometimes it wasn't the size of the excel file but the fact that the individual worksheets sometimes had embedded macros that apparently conflicted with tageditor. This is sometimes overcome by removing the formulae and replacing them with the contents in each cell as plain nu
... See more
Before I discovered the wordfast trick, I used to split up the excel file basically creating a separate workbook for each sheet. and then amalgamating them after the translation.

Another thing I found was that sometimes it wasn't the size of the excel file but the fact that the individual worksheets sometimes had embedded macros that apparently conflicted with tageditor. This is sometimes overcome by removing the formulae and replacing them with the contents in each cell as plain numbers/text.

Separately translating each worksheet will show the worksheet with the offending macros.
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Grzegorz Gryc
Grzegorz Gryc  Identity Verified
Local time: 04:53
French to Polish
+ ...
Save as XLSX Oct 6, 2009

Helen Matthews wrote:

I've been given a manual to translate, but it's in excel format and very large. Even when I've taken out the images, Trados still hasn't managed to analyse it (so I daren't start translating it with tag editor, as I seriously doubt it'll manage a clean up at the end!)


Trados may be extremely slow on huge XLS files, it may take several hours, so you should run this kind of tasks by night and pray it's finished in the morning
But generally the XLS export work.

You can try to save XLS as XLSX (Office 2007).

As Trados doen't use Excel to process this file format, it's really faster, the Trados-Excel data exchange is not optimized at all, the competitors are frankly better.
E.g., see the thread:
http://www.proz.com/forum/sdl_trados_support/144580-ridiculous_studio_2009_performance_for_not_so_huge_excel_files.html

PS.
One of my preferred test files (above 30 000 words, approx. 70-80 sheets, at least 2-3 small images on every sheet) opens in approx. 2 minutes as XLSX.
Tested on Trados 2007 Suite.

Cheers
GG


 
Helen Matthews
Helen Matthews  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:53
Member (2008)
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
xlsx appears to work - any suggestions for line breaks? Oct 6, 2009

Thanks for that - I shall certainly look into wordfast anyway!

Having saved in xlsx I now appear to be able to analyse the files so am confident (too big a word?) that the clean-up will work...

don't suppose anyone's got any suggestions about line breaks now, have they? (at the moment there is about half a sentence written into each cell, so of course tag editor line breaks are all mid-sentence)...

Thanks again!!

Helen


 
Grzegorz Gryc
Grzegorz Gryc  Identity Verified
Local time: 04:53
French to Polish
+ ...
External CAT tool Oct 6, 2009

Helen Matthews wrote:

Thanks for that - I shall certainly look into wordfast anyway!

Having saved in xlsx I now appear to be able to analyse the files so am confident (too big a word?) that the clean-up will work...

It should work but you can always populate the target with source and test it.
It's always safer.
I.e. you should pretlanslate using an empty TM with the option Segment unknown sentences.

don't suppose anyone's got any suggestions about line breaks now, have they? (at the moment there is about half a sentence written into each cell, so of course tag editor line breaks are all mid-sentence)...

As the portions of these sentences are in different cells, you can't join these segments in TagEditor.

My standard lazy response is to use other CAT, import the TTX file and join Trados segments there.
I use mainly DVX but I think MemoQ will be simpler and safer for you.
It works as a charm.
E.g., see:
http://www.proz.com/forum/memoq_support/147314-trados_ini_file_with_imported_ttx_files_in_memoq.html
A 45-day MemoQ trial version is available somewhere on http://www.kilgray.com

Probably the list is not exhaustive, I have no time to test 'em all

Cheers
GG

[Edited at 2009-10-06 19:41 GMT]


 
Helen Matthews
Helen Matthews  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:53
Member (2008)
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks to both of you Oct 6, 2009

Thanks both GG and Richard for your helpful advice - should manage to sort out sth this time round, but it looks like I'll definitely have to investigate Trados alternatives for the future!!

All the best,

Helen


 


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Excel file too large to work with Trados 2007







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