Unclean Trados file without tags
Thread poster: Emily Gilby
Emily Gilby
Emily Gilby  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:07
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French to English
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Nov 2, 2020

I'm still fairly new to memoQ so apologies if this is a simple question!

A PM asked me to provide clean and unclean files on delivery (their company uses Trados). Before accepting the job, I asked whether an SDLXLIFF file and a Trados DOC/RTF file were what they needed and they said yes. I translated the file from the SDLXLIFF file that they sent in memoQ and sent them the SDLXLIFF and Trados DOC/RTF files when I'd finished. The SDLXLIFF was fine but they replied saying that the Tra
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I'm still fairly new to memoQ so apologies if this is a simple question!

A PM asked me to provide clean and unclean files on delivery (their company uses Trados). Before accepting the job, I asked whether an SDLXLIFF file and a Trados DOC/RTF file were what they needed and they said yes. I translated the file from the SDLXLIFF file that they sent in memoQ and sent them the SDLXLIFF and Trados DOC/RTF files when I'd finished. The SDLXLIFF was fine but they replied saying that the Trados DOC/RTF (which was exported as a Word doc on my end) had tags in it and so they had to reconvert the file themselves. Could someone tell me how to export an unclean file for Trados? When I exported, I chose "Export bilingual" and selected "Trados DOC/RTF" and did not alter the boxes below that were already checked. My memoQ version is 9.1.

I've read something about the PM having to "presegment" the file before sending it so I'm not sure if this was a problem on my end or on theirs. Any clarity would be greatly appreciated, I always panic when accepting Trados files in case something like this happens!
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Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 03:07
English to Russian
SDLXLIFF = unclean, native file = clean Nov 2, 2020

Though you didn’t mention that, I suppose the source file is in MS Word format. If so, they expect an unclean file which is SDLXLIFF and a clean docx file. They think you send them the old Trados-compatible doc/rtf file as the “clean” version. That is why they complain about the segmentation tags. Just export your target translation in the native file format by choosing the ‘Export stored path’ option. I think this is what they expect as a clean file.

[Edited at 2020-11-02 10:24 GMT]


 
Emily Gilby
Emily Gilby  Identity Verified
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How? Nov 2, 2020

Thanks for your reply Stepan. Could you let me know how to export the file to the native file format? The source text was a Word file, you're right, but they sent me the source text as an SDLXLIFF so this is the file that I worked on.

 
Samuel Murray
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English to Afrikaans
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@Emily, they misunderstood what you meant Nov 2, 2020

Emily Scott wrote:
A PM asked me to provide clean and unclean files on delivery (their company uses Trados). Before accepting the job, I asked whether an SDLXLIFF file and a Trados DOC/RTF file were what they needed and they said yes.


It may be that the source format for their file was either DOC or RTF, but I'm guessing that that is not what you meant when you said "DOC/RTF". You meant the file that MemoQ calls a "Trados DOC/RTF" file, which (although you may not know this) is an uncleaned RTF file, i.e. a file that can be opened in Word which contains both source and target text with little bits of code in-between. This was the main file format of Trados 2006, but is still used by or supported by some other CAT tools (e.g. Wordfast Classic).

I think the client meant that they want to receive an SDLXLIFF file plus the final file in its final format. From their perspective, the SDLXLIFF file is the "unclean" file, and the final file in its final format is the "clean" file. And as far as I know, MemoQ can't generate a final file from an SDLXLIFF file.

Could someone tell me how to export an unclean file for Trados? When I exported, I chose "Export bilingual" and selected "Trados DOC/RTF" and did not alter the boxes below that were already checked.


Yes, you were simply converting the MemoQ project into a particular file format which MemoQ calls "Trados DOC/RTF" and which is called by many other names, including "uncleaned RTF". The file exported by MemoQ is not a fully featured "uncleaned RTF" file because it does not retain layout and formatting, and thus you can't generate a final file in its final format using just the "Trados DOC/RTF" file that MemoQ exports. (Strictly speaking MemoQ should call it "Trados DOC/RTF-similar".) Either way, I don't think this is the file format that your client was hoping to get.

If you client doesn't use MemoQ, then there is no way that they could have known that when MemoQ says "Trados DOC/RTF", it means a feature-reduced variant of a Trados 2006 (!) file.


Stepan Konev
 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 03:07
English to Russian
Do they know you use memoQ? Nov 2, 2020

Actually, if you don't have the native docx file, you cannot export it. If you worked in SDL Trados Studio, you could extract docx from sdlxliff. However memoQ cannot do that. Did you tell your client you used memoQ? My guess is that you didn't or did but they misunderstand how it works in memoQ.

TranslateWithMe
 
Samuel Murray
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English to Afrikaans
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@Emily II Nov 2, 2020

Stepan Konev wrote:
Emily Scott wrote:
Thanks for your reply Stepan. Could you let me know how to export the file to the native file format? The source text was a Word file, you're right, but they sent me the source text as an SDLXLIFF so this is the file that I worked on.

Actually, if you don't have the native DOCX file, you cannot export it. If you worked in SDL Trados Studio, you could extract DOCX from SDLXLIFF . However memoQ cannot do that.

I agree with Stepan. As far as I know, MemoQ can't generate a final file from an SDLXLIFF file.

Tell them to send you the original Word file separately, then you create a new, separate MemoQ project, add the Word file to it, and then re-translated it against the TM that you created while translating the SDLXLIFF file. It would require some extra work because you won't get 100% matches for all segments.

It may be that the agency doesn't have Trados either, since if they did, they could have generated the final file in its final format themselves using just the SDLXLIFF file that you sent them.

Or, perhaps they were hoping that you would proofread the final file in its final format, to check for broken formatting and layout, and deliver a final file that is print-ready. If this is what they expected, then ask them to convert the file on their side and send you the converted DOCX file so that you can do a final proofreader on it (for free) to check for layout and formatting issues.


Emily Gilby
 
Emily Gilby
Emily Gilby  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
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Thank you both Nov 2, 2020

This makes sense, thank you for the explanation Samuel. I did tell them that I use memoQ but maybe they're not that familiar with it as they seem to just use Trados on their end. In future, for memoQ Trados projects, I'll know to tell them that I can only send back the SDLXLIFF and not the final file. I can't think why it would be an issue if I couldn't send the final file to them as they can just convert it themselves, I can only think that it was maybe just a way to save time.

Stepan Konev
 
Emily Gilby
Emily Gilby  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:07
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French to English
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Bingo Nov 2, 2020

Tell them to send you the original Word file separately, then you create a new, separate MemoQ project, add the Word file to it, and then re-translated it against the TM that you created while translating the SDLXLIFF file. It would require some extra work because you won't get 100% matches for all segments.

It may be that the agency doesn't have Trados either, since if they did, they could have generated the final file in its final format themselves using just the SDLXLIFF file that you sent them.

Or, perhaps they were hoping that you would proofread the final file in its final format, to check for broken formatting and layout, and deliver a final file that is print-ready. If this is what they expected, then ask them to convert the file on their side and send you the converted DOCX file so that you can do a final proofreader on it (for free) to check for layout and formatting issues.


I think you've hit the nail on the head there!

I sent them what I thought was the Word file that they were looking for but they said that it had not converted (I now understand what they mean) and they sent me back the DOCX file that they had converted for me to proofread for any formatting issues.

You've really cleared this up for me I'll know what to do in future now and feel more confident about memoQ, thank you so much for all your help!

[Edited at 2020-11-02 10:53 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
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Netherlands
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English to Afrikaans
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An attempt at extracting the internal file from an SDLXLIFF file Nov 2, 2020

Stepan Konev wrote:
Actually, if you don't have the native docx file, you cannot export it.


Yes, I've often wanted to do that... outside of Trados. So I cobbled together a small AutoIt script that attempts to do that:
http://www.leuce.com/autoit/extract%20SDLXLIFF%20internal%20file.zip

The script needs AutoIt to work, and obviously only works on Windows. It attempts to detect the internal file in an SDLXLIFF file (because not all SDLXLIFF files have internal files) and tries to determine it's original file name, and tries to extract it and save it as a ZIP file (since in my tests the internal file was always a ZIP file).


 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 03:07
English to Russian
Is there any chance Nov 2, 2020

that you can convert or instruct me how to convert your AutoIt script into an AHK script? =)
*Unless it takes too much effort.

[Edited at 2020-11-02 12:49 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 01:07
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English to Afrikaans
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@Stepan Nov 2, 2020

Stepan Konev wrote:
Is there any chance that you can convert or instruct me how to convert your AutoIt script into an AHK script? =)


Well, you have to hope that someone had written a function in AHK to convert base64. The steps in the script are relatively straight forward: check for the relevant tags in the SDLXLIFF file, extract just the code portion from it, and then convert the code from base64 to binary and save the file, but... to convert base64 is something that I can't do myself, so I used a function written by someone else.

If you don't mind combining your AHK script with an external utility, there are base64 converters out there that work via the commandline, which you can call from within the AHK script. I suspect the one at Mark's Lab might still work. The "internal file" in Trados is a ZIP file that was encoded in base64, so you have to decode it. It's the same encoding that many e-mail systems use to ensure that binary attachments survive roundtripping in plaintext e-mails.

In fast, a base64 converter makes the script almost superfluous: simply open the SDLXLIFF file in a text editor, select and copy the internal file's code, and then send it to the base64 converter (in Mark's Lab's one, right-click and paste). Result: a zip file.

[Edited at 2020-11-02 15:38 GMT]


Stepan Konev
 


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Unclean Trados file without tags






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