Is there a process for assigning different field values across a batch of bilingual files? Thread poster: rthomas
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rthomas 
Local time: 12:43
German to English
Hello all,
I'm hoping that somebody here might be able to share a couple of ideas to help with one of my new year's resolutions: to try and improve how we update our file-based Trados TMs. I'll start by explaining what we currently do:
Using the Cleanup function, we update our "master" TMs retrospectively in 2007 Suite every couple of weeks to add in the most recent translations (a combination of internal and outsourced TTX, SDLXLIFF and bilingual DOC files). We clean a... See more Hello all,
I'm hoping that somebody here might be able to share a couple of ideas to help with one of my new year's resolutions: to try and improve how we update our file-based Trados TMs. I'll start by explaining what we currently do:
Using the Cleanup function, we update our "master" TMs retrospectively in 2007 Suite every couple of weeks to add in the most recent translations (a combination of internal and outsourced TTX, SDLXLIFF and bilingual DOC files). We clean and/or import the individual bilingual files or small groups of files that share the same field values, assigning values click-by-click in the 'normal' way (translator, PM, project title, job no.). Although we still use 2007 Suite for our TM updating/maintenance out of habit, there's no reason why we shouldn't exclusively use Studio for this – as long as we can still create TTX files to send to our main customers, we can handle everything else in Studio. After we've added the most recent TUs in 2007 Suite, the final step is to Upgrade the updated TM into Studio 2009 format so that the new segments are available in both formats. Although this basically works fine and ensures we always enter the right field values against the right TUs, it's slow going. Also, since we handle quite a lot of short projects, we end up having to enter a lot of field values for a relatively small number of TUs.
So in a nutshell, I'd like to be able to assign field values to batches of bilingual files in a single process (or at least using fewer steps than we currently do), to reduce the number of separate cleanup/import operations we have to do.
One idea I've been exploring involves batch-converting the last 2 weeks' translated TTXes into a single merged TMX using Okapi Rainbow, assigning the fields and values to the TUs within that merged TMX using Olifant (cross-referring to the original TTXes to check which range of TUs are from which project), then importing that updated TMX into Trados in a single final step. It looks as though you can't assign new fields in Olifant that don't already exist in the TMX, though, so this doesn't quite do what I need. I also don't know if the export/import through Olifant would upset Trados. If I could get this to work, though, I reckon it might be quicker than our current approach.
I'll happily admit that I'm getting out of my depth here, but I hope I've clearly described what we currently do. When I explained the scenario to a friend who works as a programmer (but has nothing to do with language translation), he suggested I learn a programming language like Python and write a script myself. I'm hoping there's a quicker solution out there, so any and all suggestions will be gratefully received!
All the best, and a very Happy New Year,
Richard ▲ Collapse
| | | | Michael Beijer
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:43
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
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| | Why ask in all thoses places? | Dec 30, 2012 |
It's actually quite simple. You can do this at least two ways. The first would be to create a Project for each update, add your bilingual files from 2007 and the Main TM you wish to update. Then first set the update field value you wish here (assuming you have the fields available for this TM first of course):
Project Settings -> Language Pairs -> All Language Pairs -> Translation Memory and Automated Translation -> Update
Then run the update Main TM batch task to up... See more It's actually quite simple. You can do this at least two ways. The first would be to create a Project for each update, add your bilingual files from 2007 and the Main TM you wish to update. Then first set the update field value you wish here (assuming you have the fields available for this TM first of course):
Project Settings -> Language Pairs -> All Language Pairs -> Translation Memory and Automated Translation -> Update
Then run the update Main TM batch task to update your TM and at the same time apply the field value you set to each TU that gets updated into your Main TM.
Alternatively you can just import the bilingual TTX files directly into the TM (all at once) and apply the same field as you do it.
Regards
Paul ▲ Collapse
| | | | rthomas
Local time: 12:43
German to English
TOPIC STARTER | Wouldn't that still mean running 1 import for each project/file though? | Dec 30, 2012 |
Hi Michael and Paul,
Thank you, both, for your replies - much appreciated.
@Paul: this sounds like the process for importing a file or batch of files with identical field values. That's essentially what we do (but using Cleanup in 2007). I'm hoping that there's a faster way of assigning field values (possibly before importing the segments into 2007 or Studio), since it takes so long to assign the values just 1 or 2 files at a time during the import/cleanup. That'... See more Hi Michael and Paul,
Thank you, both, for your replies - much appreciated.
@Paul: this sounds like the process for importing a file or batch of files with identical field values. That's essentially what we do (but using Cleanup in 2007). I'm hoping that there's a faster way of assigning field values (possibly before importing the segments into 2007 or Studio), since it takes so long to assign the values just 1 or 2 files at a time during the import/cleanup. That's where I'm stuck.
At the moment for example, I've got about 200 TTX files to add, which need to be distributed across 7 or 8 TMs (i.e. some 30-ish files per TM), and which come from approx. 100 different project numbers. So using our current approach I'll need to assign at least 100 separate sets of field values, meaning 100 separate imports and an awful lot of clicks.
It would be great if Studio would let me set up a single import for each TM, select all the TTXes I want to add to that TM, apply different field values per TTX, and then let Studio churn through them all. As far as I can tell that's not possible though, which is why I started looking into converting the TTXes to TMX first, then adding the fields and values into the TMX at that stage (possibly using Olifant) - so I'd end up with a single 'merged' TMX for each batch of 30-ish files that I could import in Studio. I'm not attached to that idea though, and would be grateful for any other suggestions.
@Michael: Thanks for your suggestion, I'll try re-posting. I was thinking of asking in the Okapitools group as well, but thought I'd try here first.
Even if it turns out that there isn't a quicker way to do this, at least I'll know!
Thanks again,
Richard ▲ Collapse
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| Where do the field values come from? | Dec 30, 2012 |
Hi Richard,
What I mean is, can these values be recognised from the bilingual files, from a folder each one is in maybe, or is this a separate list held in a file somewhere?
Clearly I didn't fully grasp what you are trying to improve upon, and I think you would need something programmatic to do this. I think it would be possible through the api... something you could do yourself or arrange if you know a developer with c# skills (or any other language... but the sdk... See more Hi Richard,
What I mean is, can these values be recognised from the bilingual files, from a folder each one is in maybe, or is this a separate list held in a file somewhere?
Clearly I didn't fully grasp what you are trying to improve upon, and I think you would need something programmatic to do this. I think it would be possible through the api... something you could do yourself or arrange if you know a developer with c# skills (or any other language... but the sdk is built around c# so this would be more helpful). I might also be able to find an interested developer if you do enough work to make paying for this worthwhile?
I imagine other solutions involving macros (autohotkey for example) may be possible... but definitely not an out of the box solution.
Regards
Paul ▲ Collapse
| | | | rthomas
Local time: 12:43
German to English
TOPIC STARTER | Yes, the field values would be in a CSV. | Jan 1, 2013 |
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, it would be straightforward for us to have a list of all the files and field values in a CSV file (for example), with one row per TTX.
I do like the idea of an AutoHotkey solution and have been playing around with this today - but I come unstuck when it comes to entering the field values, since using keystrokes in the field values / attribute picklist windows (in 2009 Studio and 2007 respectively) doesn't work (e.g. if I want to ente... See more Hi Paul,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, it would be straightforward for us to have a list of all the files and field values in a CSV file (for example), with one row per TTX.
I do like the idea of an AutoHotkey solution and have been playing around with this today - but I come unstuck when it comes to entering the field values, since using keystrokes in the field values / attribute picklist windows (in 2009 Studio and 2007 respectively) doesn't work (e.g. if I want to enter the translator ID as "ABC", pressing the keys A-B-C will select 3 different translators beginning with A, B, and C, instead of picking just "ABC"). We always have to use the mouse to select the field values. I can't tell if AutoHotkey has a sensible way to get around this, so maybe converting from TTX --> TMX is the way to go.
I think I'll look into our options for having a program written (much as I like the idea of coming up with something myself, I've never done any programming so I'd be starting completely from scratch). I'll contact you offline if we'd like help finding a developer for this.
Anyway, thank you again for responding, and I'll post here again if I find a neat solution. Any other comments/suggestions are of course still very welcome!
All the best,
Richard ▲ Collapse
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rthomas wrote:
maybe converting from TTX --> TMX is the way to go.
I'm not very well versed in these issues, but if your problem can be reduced to "I have 100 TMX files and a list of what field needs to be added to every TU in each of these TMX files", then that should be a pretty easy problem to solve. I could do it in perl, but pretty much any programming language could be used.
If the TMX files are not entirely uniform, then it's pretty easy to generate corrupt output files or screw up something else, so you'd need to do a bit of error checking/validation, but overall it's a pretty straightforward task.
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