Using translation memory tools

Many professional translators and translation agencies use "translation memory" tools like SD Trados (this is the market leader) to translate Help+Manual projects.

Translation memory tools are generally too complex and expensive to purchase and learn yourself unless your company has its own translation department. However, the benefits of using them are so great that you should really consider working with translators who use them, particularly if you have extensive documentation that gets updated regularly.

If you can, using translation memory is definitely the most efficient way to manage the translation and localization of your Help+Manual projects.

Protecting text against changes and translation

You can explicitly protect text against translation and editing changes. To do this select the text in the editor and then select the "padlock" tool in Write > Font. The text will then be displayed shaded in the Help+Manual editor and it will be tagged with the attribute translate="false" in the XML topic file.

How translation memory works

Translation memory tools have an integrated dynamic database for your projects that automatically "remembers" all text that has been translated. When you deliver updated version of your project the software first reads it through and automatically translates all the sentences that have already been translated. Then the human translator only needs to process the new and changed material.

In addition to this they generally also feature additional tools to make translation more efficient, like a terminology database that gives the translator direct access to the correct translated terms for all your special terminology.

Benefits of translation memory

•Never translate anything twice – all unchanged material gets translated automatically

•Terminology consistency – your customers don't get confused by varying terms for the same things

•Easy updating – no need to track changes, you just send the new version for translation

•Compatibility with Help+Manual projects – the tools work on them directly

Translation memory tool compatibility

Generally, any tool capable of handling XML files should be able to process Help+Manual's topic and TOC files, although some will do it better than others. XML-aware tools like weblink SDL Trados and weblink Across can process Help+Manual projects directly.

Generating configuration files for Help+Manual in Trados

Trados configuration files are no longer included directly

Help+Manual no longer includes standard configuration files for SDL Trados because experience has shown that most translators need to generate their own version, and this is better done directly in the specific version of Trados that they are using.

Creating an .sdlfiletype for Help+Manual

Translators using SDL Trados need to generate an .sdlfiletype configuration file from the XSD file included in every HM project folder. XSD stands for "XML Schema Data' and it defines the entire Help+Manual' XML format, or "schema". It describes which tags are allowed by the XML schema, how they relate to each other and what they can contain. Most XML editors, including Trados, can validate an XML file against the schema. If the XML that the program writes validates against the XSD file, this guarantees that H&M will be able read it after translation.

Trados has a list of all the file types that Trados knows how to process, including HTML, XHTML, Word, DITA, and several other XML schemas. Trados can add XML schemas it does not yet know by analyzing the XSD file for that schema. To (re-)create an .sdlfiletype configuration file for the current version of Trados, the translator needs to get Trados to analyze the file helpproject.xsd that is included in the project folder of every Help+Manual HMXP project. Trados will then rebuild the .sdlfiletype to update it to the current version, or create a new one. This configuration file will then be used for processing Help & Manual projects.

Using the XSL file for WYSIWYG display

In addition to using XSD to process XML and be able to write valid XML for the schema, programs like Trados also have configurable display filters to display the data in the XML tags in a way that the human translators can more easily work with. These filters can be configured with XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) defined in an XSL file, which defines how the tags in the schema should be displayed on the screen.

An XSL file is also included in the project folder for browser display of the topics and Trados can use this for displaying the data the translator is working on. Web browsers can also read this file: If you open a topic XML file with a web browser and the browser supports XSLT (the XSL file is referenced in the topic), then the browser can display an approximate representation of the topic, both the original and the translation.

How to deliver your projects for translation with translation memory

If you are working with a translator who is using one of these tools you need to send them the entire folder containing your project in the uncompressed XML/HMXP format. You can only save projects in this format with the Professional or Floating license version.

The translators need to have the entire project folder, which should also contain all your graphics files folders. You will receive back a translated version that you can open directly in Help+Manual to do any final layout work and publish the project to the formats you want to use (CHM, HTML etc).

Click on the individual steps below to display more detailed instructions.

1.Make sure your graphics are included in your project folder

Graphics files:
The translator will be able to understand the project better if you include the graphics files. The easiest way to enable this is to make sure that all the graphics are included in the project folder as well. You can move them there easily, and generally they should always be kept there. See Managing your graphics for instructions.

Graphics containing text:
If you create your graphics using the Impict editor included with Help+Manual you can have it store the text they contain in linked XML files that can be translated by translation memory programs. See Translating texts in images for more details.

2.Set up the language settings for the target language in the translation version

For details on the settings you need to make and the issues you need to consider study International languages setup.

3.Check whether you need to include any snippet files for the translator

If your files contain linked snippets from external sources you may need to include copies of these embedded files for the translator.

If you include the files with the translation package you should put them in a separate folder inside the project folder you are going to send to the translator and add an entry to Configuration > Common Properties > Project Search Path pointing to the folder containing the snippet files so that Help+Manual will find them.

4.Pack everything in a zip file for the translator

Finally, pack up the entire prepared folder and all its contents in a zip or other appropriate archive format and send it to the translators for processing.

Translating individual topics

Since all your topics are stored as individual XML files you can also send copies of individual files out for translation as well. However, this is not generally recommended. It is usually better to provide the entire project so that the translator has the entire context. Also, when you split out individual topics it is much too easy to lose track of what has been edited and what hasn't.

In addition to copying individual topic files from your project folder you can also export topic files with the File > Save Topic to File function in Project > Manage Topics.

How to update projects using translation memory

When you use translation memory tools the procedure for translating an updated project is exactly the same as for the original project. You just send the translators the entire updated project folder, using the procedure described above. The translation memory database will automatically translate all the known sentences, leaving only the new and changed material for the human translators to process.

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