Working in the Editor

Merging Files

In previous versions of Studio, it was possible to merge files, but only when the project was created. The possibility is still there in Studio 2014, but a new way for virtually merging files has been added. Select the files you want to work with simultaneously and click on Open For Translation.

This opens the files in the Editor, and you can work with all files concatenated. In the left panel, you can switch between files, and the file boundaries are marked with yellow tags in the Editor.

The only difference between virtual and 'real' merged files is that segment numbering starts again for each file, see the picture above. It makes it a little more difficult to search for a segment number.

The files above are pretranslated with 70% minimum match value, and without machine translation.

Pretranslate with machine translation

Now I redo the Pretranslate with the setting When no match found/Apply automated translation:

Then the result is the following:

Language Cloud only works from and into English. MyMemory Plugin (which I used here) and Google Translate works in all (my) language directions, this is Finnish to Swedish.

Now I have all the TUs filled either with 100% hits or 99-70% hits and the rest is machine translated.

Translate Until Fuzzy with Auto-propagation

Now I go to the top line and begin the translation with "Translate Until Fuzzy", or "Confirm and Translate until Next Fuzzy Match" as the official name is. Do not forget to turn off the machine translation first. If you have it on the Translate until Fuzzy runs slower and if you use GT, it costs a bit too.

Auto-propagation means that if there are several duplicates of a source TU, then the translation is copied to all TUs. After some trial and error, my settings are as below.

Files/Options/Auto-propagation:

Use this setting, or try it out yourself. Translate Until Fuzzy steps through all confirmed TUs and stops at the first that is either below 100% or is a machine translation.

If you do not think the hit can be edited, delete it with the function Clear Target Segments. If you want to copy the source, use the Copy Source to Target.

Use keyboard shortcuts for the above functions and any others frequently used.

Keyboard Shortcuts

There are keyboard shortcuts for most of the common functions in Studio. Use them, it streamlines the work and you will avoid carpal tunnel syndrome from unnecessary mouse clicking.

Here I will only show a few keyboard shortcuts that are needed for the daily translation work in the Editor.

Command	SDL short	My Short
Confirm and Move to Next Segment	Ctrl Alt Enter	Alt Q
Confirm and Translate until Next Fuzzy Match	Ctrl Alt F	Alt W
Clear Target Segment	Alt Del	Alt Z
Copy Source to Target	Ctrl Ins	Alt <
Select Match 1-9	Ctrl 1-9	Ctrl 1-9
Confirm and Move to Next Unconfirmed Segment	Ctrl Enter	Alt E
Concordance Search	F3	F3
Add New Term	Ctrl F2	Alt F12
Save Term	Ctrl F12	Ctrl F12
Project settings (toggle MT)	?	Alt S
Copy All Source to Target	Alt Shift Ins	Remove

You can change the shortcuts with File/Options/Keyboard Shortcuts. As you can see, I've changed almost all of the keyboard shortcuts. And there is good reason to do it, even if you are not left-handed like me. I think that there is a difference between one hand shortcuts and two hand shortcuts. Not to mention three-finger shortcuts.

For all very frequent commands, like the first four in the table, you should have one hand shortcuts. Preferably placed so that you do not need to move your hands from the normal writing position. I have put all the frequent commands on the left hand, but a right-handed person might choose to put them on the right side of the keyboard. In my opinion, SDL's default shortcuts are very unergonomic. Especially the three-finger shortcuts.