TRADOS Training

for Newbies

Page 2

Introduction

1.1 About this e-book

This is not a complete users guide but a simplified version made on a
need-to-know basis. SDL already came up with a complete users guide
which can be found after installing TRADOS in the Documentation
folder.
Throughout this document you may find various hyperlinks which are
interactive and can speed up the process, like the one below that
links you to a Microsoft Office 2002 Interactive Training.

Microsoft Office 2002 Interactive Training

1.2. Why TRADOS 7 Freelance?

TRADOS is one of the leading CAT (Computer Assisted Translation)
software tools that are currently on the market.
In a very simplistic way of looking at it, this tool remembers what was
previously translated, stores it and makes it reusable either in the same
document or even in different documents. Thus speeding up the
process of translation.
Also it provides a range of valuable tools which can for example align
a source file and a translated file and gives you a matching memory.
It helps with the translation of complicated DTP software files like the
ones from InDesign or Quark Express and helps the translator to work
with these files without learning to work in these complicated programs
and also helps the client keep valuable layouts and formatting .

1.3. Our Aim

It is very helpful to have an aim when starting something.
The aim of this manual is not to make you TRADOS Experts, but to
familiarise you to the basics commands and work style necessary to
accomplish fast translations and proof readings, and to provide you
with some useful tips, tricks and frequent bug solutions.
For any future questions you can always contact Constantin PM on
Tranwise or via e-mail at support@isotranslations.com.
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TRADOS Basics - Introduction

How to Install
TRADOS 7 Freelance

2.1. Requirements:

To first install TRADOS 7 Freelance and get the full benefits that this
translation software offers you will need the following:
Microsoft Office Package: TRADOS 7 Freelance is compatible
with Microsoft Office versions 97 to 2003. Later versions have
been found to generate problems.
Basic PC skills: You dont need to be a C++ expert to handle
a translation/proofreading job with TRADOS 7 Freelance, but
you will need some basic knowledge of MS Office and a bit of
patience.
TRADOS 7 Freelance kit: This kit can be found at the following
link. Click the link to download it.

TRADOS 7 Freelance Install Kit

2.2. Installing TRADOS 7 Freelance:

After downloading all the files from our server, extract them using a
tool of your choice (Winrar, Winace, Winzip etc,). You should now
have 3 Items:
TRADOS 7 Freelance;
TRADOS Multiterm;
License file (license.lic);

First thing we need to do is install TRADOS 7 Freelance. All we need to

do is to go into the TRADOS 7 folder and open Setup.exe. The same
thing we will do for TRADOS 7 Multiterm.
After going through all the steps you will need to choose which
languages you want installed.
The freelance version lets you use only 5 languages, so keep in
mind when installing to choose the ones you need.
When installing you will be asked to register through some methods.
We are currently using a softkey, the license.lic file, so that file you will
load when installing so you benefit from the full freelance pack.

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TRADOS Basics - Installation

First Glimpse

3.1. Oh Noes! What have we done?

If we managed to get this far we should at least try to open the
program just to take a look and see what we have installed.
TRADOS 7
If we managed to install it without any problems we should see 2 very
important icons:
Translators Workbench

TRADOS TagEditor

These are the ones you will be using most frequently.

Translators Workbench is the tool that enables you to save your
translation work into a Translation Memory (TM), or use contents of
other saved memories which you can import, share etc.
TagEditor is the stand alone application that enables you to work with
Excel, InDesign, QuarkXPress etc and other Special Files

3.2. How does it work?

Even if we are talking about working in MS Word or working within the
TagEditor interface, basically the work style is the same. The source
text is split into translation segments (Translation Units - TU). These
segments can be sentences, paragraphs, table rows etc, and are
created according to the program settings.
These segments are of two types: source and target.
What the TM does is keep a data base of which target segment is
attributed to which source segment. The segments are divided by
tags, but we will explore this subject further in the next chapters of this
guide

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TRADOS Basics - First Glimpse

Using a TRADOS
Memory

4.1. What is a TM?

TRADOS revolves around the Translation Memory (TM). This is basically

a database which stores all the source TUs and their corresponding
target TUs. Translation memories can be created from scratch, or
reused from previous projects with the same language combination.

4.2. Creating a TM
Creating a TM is easier than it sounds. All you have to do is open the
Translators Workbench and follow these simple steps.

You will have to

choose the source
and target language
for the project. In this
case it is GE to NL. To
keep things tidy I
recommend
setting
the name of the TM to
GE-NL.
The TM consists of 5
files with the following
extensions .twm, .iix,
.mwf, .mdf, .mtf.
The .twm file is the one
that actually stores
the progress, the rest
are used for server
applications with TM.

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TRADOS Basics - Using a TM

The rest of the fields in this window are self explanatory.

After completing this step the Translators Workbench window should
appear, and a message on the bottom left of it should say that a new
translation memory has been created.
In order to save your progress it is mandatory that Translators
Workbench with the correct Translation memory be open
throughout the translation process.

4.3. Importing a TM
There are cases when the client sends an export from another CAT
program, or from another TRADOS version. This export can be in the
form of two file types .tmx and the familiar .txt.
Importing a TM can have some other very useful applications,
for example translating using two TM with the same subject and
languages can improve the chances of getting a good match and
lessen the translators work, or update an old version of a TM with new
content etc.
To do this we need to open Translators Workbench and create a new
TM with the language combination we need.

As we can see this

window shows some of
the options available
when importing a TM.
We wont get into much
detail about this function.
For more information
you can check the user
manual.
After you choose the location of the imported file and click OK you
should see in the lower right corner of the Translators Workbench the
updating progress.

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TRADOS Basics - Using a TM

Note that all the 5 files must be present in order for the TM to work
so please upload all 5 of them.

Working with
TRADOS in Word

5.1. TRADOS Toolbar and Word User Interface

When opening MS Word after installing TRADOS Workbench you

should notice that a new toolbar is available. That contains all the
buttons you will need to perform a translation with TRADOS.

This is the toolbar for TRADOS 2007 with MS Word 2007, but the button
symbols are the same in TRADOS 7. I will use these because they show
what the button does and it is a little more intuitive.
Before we can start translating we need to make sure some settings in
Word are applied:
Make sure that the option Show/Hide is deactivated
(i.e. there should be no small dots between all the words).

Make sure In Microsoft Word, select

View-Normal or click the first icon of
the five on the left. The Normal view
mode is the recommended view mode for translation. At the
end of the translation we will be returning to the Page Layout
view mode to confirm that we have translated all the elements.
After we have finished I recommend setting the TWB window and MS
Word window to both fit the screen at the same time and you will
notice why further along this course.

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

Having completed this step also we need to tweak some features from
TWB that will remain this way for the duration of this training. On the
other hand these settings may interfere with some requirements from
the client, so they will have to be changed back whenever dealing
with heavy formatting.
There might be less
options but make
sure
that
the
minimum
match
value is set to 50%
and
that
the
maximum number of
hits is 5%.
All the options that
you encounter here
must be ticked in
Trados 7 also. The
ones you dont you
can ignore.
In the TWB Tools menu, select Translated text colors. We will assign the
color blue to Target (100% match) and the color red to Target (fuzzy
match).
If you prefer, you can change the interface language to Spanish,
German, or French, using the User Language Interface option of the
View menu. In this manual, I will continue to use and refer to the English
version of the menu, so I recommend that you change the interface
language only after finishing this short course.
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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

5.2. TWB Settings

5.3.1. Lesson 1 - Translating a Translation Unit.

I bet youre anxious to skip these boring technical details and start
translating already. Well thats what well be doing next.

STEP 1: Open the file Training1.doc.

Open the file Training1.doc you have received along with the manual.
Place your cursor at the beginning of the document.
Note that TRADOS will consider as the first TU the TU in which the
cursor resides. If the cursor in the third TU of the text the first two TU
will be left untranslated.
Make sure you are working in Normal view mode in Word

STEP 2: Press

Open/Get or use the shortcut ALT+Home.

This being done your first sentence should now look like this.

Congratulations! You have opened your first Translation Unit (TU).

Lets take some time and discuss about what we see here:
The blue bar is the Source Unit, which is the text you need to
translate.
The yellow bar is the Target Unit, which is the place where
you should fill in the translation of the text.
The symbols {0>, <}0{>, <0} are Tags, they separate the
source and target text.
If you take a look at the Workbench window on the top of your screen
you should display the Source Unit inside the first white rectangle,
the second one should be empty and a No match! message should
appear in the bottom left of the window.
What the Open/Get function does is take this Source Unit and run it
through the Translation Memory, if it finds nothing similar that means
this text has not been translated and does not match anything else.
Lets fill in the translation for this one.
The cursor should always be flashing inside the yellow Target Unit
box. In order to avoid constantly clicking inside the yellow box,
learn to use the shortcuts.

STEP 3: Press

Set/Close or use the shortcut ALT+End.

Congratulations! You have translated your first Translation Unit (TU).

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

5.3. Enough chit-chat! Lets get to work!

Again we see that it is a No match.

STEP 5: Fill in the translation.

STEP 6: Thinking about pressing ALT+End?
I bet you are asking yourself: Didnt the dumdums from SDL think of a
way to speed this process and skip all the open and then close, open
and then close tedious task? Yeah, they kind of did!
If you look inside the TRADOS Toolbar you will see this button
This is the Set/Close/Open/Get and can be accessed by using the
shortcut ALT+Plus (Plus= + key from the Numpad).
What this does is it closes the currently open TU, opens the next one
and gets the translation if it is available.
LESSON 1 SUMMARY:
Alt+Home: Opens a new TU/Gets a translation from the TM;
Alt+End: Saves the translation of the TU/Closes the TU;
Alt+Plus: Saves the translation of the TU/Closes the TU/Opens a
new TU/Gets a translation from the TM;

5.3.2. Lesson 2 - These No matches may seem Fuzzy, but its

all about Repetition.
I presume you are wondering when does this piece of software start
getting useful. Well hold on to your pants because you are about to
find out!
We will continue with the Training1.doc document.

STEP 1: Press ALT+Plus. Fuzzy Match

What the...?? Now you have reached the fun part! You will notice
that while searching through the records of previously translated units
TWB has found something similar. And it displays a message in the
lower left of the TWB window saying it is an 80% fuzzy match. What that
means is that a part of the sentence resembles an early translation
and it automatically copies the whole old translation in the target bar.

It also points out which words are different between the first similar
source TU and the one you are trying to translate (highlighted yellow).

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

STEP 4: Open the next TU by pressing ALT+Home.

STEP 2: Press ALT+Plus. Exact Match

Again TRADOS starts behaving weird. It replaced all of my text and
suddenly that blasted yellow bar became green. That means this is an
Exact Match (or 100% match), meaning that while searching through
the TM, an exact same source TU was found translated.
You may also have noticed that the middle tag has changed to
<}100{>.

STEP 3: Press ALT+Plus. Formatting

Finally this is starting to get easy. Wait a bit? What? You already
translated that sentence. Well look again. TRADOS also recognises
the differences of formatting, so if it finds inconsistencies it will report
them as being a fuzzy match, in this case 99% fuzzy match.
Just bold out the word red and off we go.
TRADOS is case sensitive. So differences like bolded or italic words,
capitalised words, highlighted and coloured words can deduct
from the TU score.

STEP 4: Press ALT+Plus. Extra words

This next TU seems to have a grey highlight on one of the source words
and is a 85% match. That grey highlight means that inside the TM there
are similar TUs, but without that grey highlighted word. After adding
the extra word we can close this TU and go to the next one.

STEP 5: Press ALT+Plus. Order!

The next two sentences may look similar but word order is different, so
good olTRADOS highlights in the workbench window (blue highlight)
the words that are in different order between previously translated
parts and the current source text.

STEP 6: Press ALT+Plus. Dont like it!

Lets say you dont agree to one of the translated sentences in the
TM. It turns out as a 100% match. What can you do? Well you can edit
the content in the green bar and then use ALT+Plus.

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

You may have also noticed that the middle tag has changed to
<}80{>, that also means that it is an 80% match.
All thats left now is to translate the different term and jump to the next
TU. Wait? How was that done again? Ah! Right...

LESSON 2 SUMMARY:
No Match: The TUs content isnt similar to anything from the TM;
Fuzzy Match: The open TU is similar to some found within the TM,
but has some differences (word order, formatting, extra words);
Exact Match: The open TU is 100% similar to one previously
translated;

5.3.3. Lesson 3 - Extra shortcuts.

1. Concordance - Press

or ALT+

This shortcut, ALT+, is very useful in the case of large memories. It

allows you to look at all occurrences of a word or an expression in the
entire translation memory.
This is the only exception when the cursor should not be inside the
target bar. In all other cases, the cursor should be inside the target
bar at all times.
In order to use the concordance function, you must select one or
more words in the blue bar and press ALT+. A window will appear in
TWB showing the concordances.
Example: select the word car in the blue bar. Press ALT+.
A window opens with all the occurrences of the word house in the
translation memory.

This function can be used for various purposes such as checking

consistency of certain terms throughout the document etc.
You can also copy and paste using the Windows shortcuts CTRL+C
and CTRL+V.
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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

If you press ALT+PLUS, your new translation will be saved,but the

old translation from the memory will be erased. The most recent
translation is the only one that will be kept in the TM. In this way,
you can correct sentences that have been incorrectly saved in
the translation memory, or that have been incorrectly translated
by other translators, for example.

or ALT+Delete

This shortcut, ALT+Delete, allows you to cut the communication

connection without saving any translation; alternatively it allows you
to recover the sentence as it was before processing it with Trados.
Cut the communication connection without saving
If at some time you have to stop work urgently, or if for some reason you
do not want to or you do not know how to translate the sentence that
you have to translate, you can cut the communication connection
although the yellow bar is empty. To do this, press ALT+Delete.
To recover the source sentence
If for some reason you want to recover the source sentence in a pristine
state, as if you had never tampered with it, just press ALT+Delete.
An important case in point: it is not a good idea to store every single
sentence in the translation memory. Some sentences should not be
stored: for example, proper names, product codes, serial numbers,
and any expression that does not have general value for the translation
process. These elements would simply clog up the TM uselessly, so it is
better not to store them in the first place. When you encounter data
of this kind, press ALT+Delete and ALT+Home to skip on to the next
sentence.

3. Copy Source - Press

or ALT+Insert

Sometimes you may want to copy the source sentence in the yellow
bar in order to avoid having to write numbers or whole expressions
that do not need translation.
The ALT+Ins function allows you to copy all the content of the blue bar
into the yellow bar.
If you begin to translate the sentence and then you press ALT+Ins,
youll lose the bit that you have already translated.

4. Expand Segment - Press ALT+CTRL+Page Down

Sometimes it is necessary to join two source sentences into a single
translated sentence. To do this, use the shortcut ALT+CTRL+Page Down.
This function is quite useful in translations where abbreviations are not
recognised as such by Word, and TRADOS divides them into separate
TUs.
Similarly, TWB has been programmed to cut sentences with colons (:)
and semicolons (;). If you wish to join the two parts of sentences with
(:) or (;), you have to use ALT+CTRL+Page Down.
This may be changed from the segmentation rules settings, but that is
a bit advanced for this manual.

5. Shrink Segment - Press ALT+CTRL+Page Up

Obviously it does the opposite of expanding a segment.

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

2. Restore Source - Press

This function does not have any associated shortcut but it is useful in a
number of cases.
You can close a TU open without being translated, or close one when
you are unsure of the translation and dont want to add it to the TM.
This just saves the progress in Word and not in TRADOS.
This command also helps if you accidentally close the document
while the coloured bars are still visible, when you open the document
again you have to close the translation unit opened in Word but not
in TWB. To do this, use the function Close. In fact, Word will even
tell you to do so (at the bottom, in the Word message bar) if you try
to press ALT+Home: Translation seems to be opened: close it before
opening a new one. At that point, click on
be tip-top.

and everything should

7. Fix Document
If at one point you find yourself clicking on all buttons, nothing seems
to work, dont despair. There is always the Fix Document function.
The reasons for these can be various, but in most cases things like this
happen because the cursor wasnt where it was supposed to be.
You can click Fix Document and it should work from there.
At the end of this manual there will be a glossary of the most
encountered errors with quick ways to solve them.
LESSON 3 SUMMARY:
ALT+Delete: This shortcut allows you to close communication
between TWB and Word without saving the translated sentence
or when you havent translated anything yet.
ALT+: Before using this shortcut, select the word or expression
you want to search for in the whole TM and press ALT+. The
Concordance window opens.
ALT+Ins: This function copies the source sentence in the yellow
bar.
ALT+CTRL+Page Down: Joins two sentences into one.
ALT+CTRL+Page Up: Separates joined sentences.
Close: This function allows you to close a sentence without saving
it in TWB but without losing it in Word. It stays red (instead of
changing to blue). This function allows you to close the coloured
bars if you accidentally closed the file when the coloured bars
were visible.
Fix Document: This function allows you to get out of trouble when
everything has been frozen and you cant get rid of the coloured
bars translated;

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

6. Close without saving - Press

Until now, we have been working in the Normal view in Word. The
disadvantage of this view mode is that we do not see the headers,
footers, or embedded text boxes in the document.
As soon as you finish translating the plain text, go back to the Page
Layout view mode in Word to see the headers, footnotes, etc.
Headers and footers
Look for headers and footers on all pages of the document. Open
and translate them with TRADOS Usually, when you translate them on
the first page, the following pages are automatically updated.
Text boxes
Text boxes are usually difficult to translate with Trados. Often the
yellow box is not visible. So I recommend that you do not use TRADOS
to translate them. Translate them as normal by overwriting the text.

5.3.5. Lesson 5 - Corrections.

1. Spellchecker
You can run the spellchecker as follows:
You can leave it activated while you are writing (the words
are underlined in red and/or green).
You can use it at the end of the translation (the spellchecker
window pops up).

2. Corrections
There are two ways to make corrections in TRADOS. Trying both will
give you a clue and you can choose which of the two suits you better:
with TRADOS: easier and safer but also slower.
without TRADOS: trickier but faster.
Corrections with TRADOS:
a) If youve made the corrections to a hard copy, you already know
where the mistakes are. In this case, I recommend the first solution:
Look in your document on the screen for the first sentence that
contains a mistake. Place the cursor in the first word of the sentence
and press ALT+Home.
Correct the mistakes in the green bar and press ALT+End.
When you press ALT+End, you save the translation unit again in the TM.
This new translation unit replaces the older, erroneous one.
Next, look for the following sentence that contains a mistake and
repeat the process. Proceed in this way until the
b) If you prefer to correct directly on screen, place the cursor in the
middle of the first word of the document and press ALT+Home. Confirm
that the translation in the green bar is correct.
If it is, press ALT+PLUS to confirm the next one. If it is not, correct the
error in the green bar, press ALT+PLUS, and confirm the next one.
Confirm each sentence in this way until the end of the document.

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

5.3.4. Lesson 4 - Final Touches.

If you want to modify the text directly on screen, read the text with
the Show/Hide function deactivated (see Chapter 5.1.). When you
find a mistake, place the cursor on it and activate the Show/Hide
function in Word. Make your corrections in the target text.
DO NOT EDIT/DELETE OR TAMPER IN ANY WAY WITH THE TAGS!

Deactivate the Show/Hide function and look for the next mistake.
Repeat this procedure until the end of the document.
Save the document as Training1_FR.doc and close it.

5.3.5. Lesson 6 - Clean Up.

What we have done so far is to create an unclean translated
document. The next step in order to deliver the files is to create a
clean version of the file. Dont worry, you wont have to do it by
manually deleting the source text and tags because TRADOS already
has a function for that purpose.

STEP 1: Open the TM

STEP 2: ToolsClean Up
Inside TWB go to Tools and click Clean Up. The following window will
pop-up.

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

Corrections without TRADOS:

STEP 3: Press Clean Up

After you have pressed Clean Up the two progress bars should start
recording the progress of the cleaning process. This should be rather
quick.

STEP 4: Clean&Unclean
You should now own two files.
Training1_FR.doc - this being the clean file. If you open it you
will notice that all the tags and source text have disappeared.
Training1_FR.BAK - this is the unclean file. Before important
steps, such as cleaning, TRADOS makes a backup file which
is actually the unclean file we created when we translated. If
you change the name of the file to Training1_FR_unclean.doc.
You can open it to see that it is indeed the file before cleaning.

STEP 5: Final Check Up

All these steps being completed all you have to do is take another
quick look through the clean file to check that no TRADOS code was
left behind. Activate Show/Hide and if the document is without errors
that means you successfully completed your first translation of a Word
file with TRADOS.

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TRADOS Basics - Working with TRADOS in Word

Now all you need to do is load the files you need to clean. This can be
done either by using the Add button and browsing for the files or by
dragging and dropping the files inside the scroll box on the left.
You can clean more than 500 files simultaneously without any problem.
In our case, we will look for the file Training1.doc.
By default, select the Update TM radio button. This means that
whenever you clean a document, all the translation units will be
reloaded in the translation memory. If the translation you made for a
sentence in the document is different from the one given in the TM,
this one will be replaced by the latest version of the document (very
useful in case you opted to use the corrections without TRADOS).

Performing a
TRADOS Analysis

Even if this is actually the first step, in terms of normal workflow, it was
left at the end purely for didactic reasons. Now that you have the
basic knowledge of how TRADOS works and what Fuzzy, Repetitions
and No Matches represent we can perform our first analysis.

6.1. What is the analysis?

The analysis tells you how many words there are in the document
needing to be translated.
What a TRADOS Analysis does is:
It allows you to perform an accurate word count;
It allows you to verify an existing analysis;
It details how many segments or how many words are
translated in the TM and how much the translator has to
translate him/herself.
When we begin to work with Trados our TM is empty, but as it increases
youll find an ever greater number of similar sentences. The client often
sends an old TM, which is great. But in order to know how much we
can utilize that TM, we need to be able to analyse the text.

6.2. How to perform an analysis?

STEP 1: Files
The following files are necessary to perform a TRADOS Analysis:
Source Files - documents to be translated;
TM - if it is provided, or if none is available create a new one;

STEP 2: ToolsAnalysis

Use the Add button to indicate the program where the files are that
you want to analyse. In our case, we will look for the Demo7.doc file.
Once the file has been selected, it appears in the column of the
Analyse window.

STEP 2: ToolsAnalysis
Click on the Analyse button. TWB will analyse the document in a few
seconds, the progress being displayed in the two progress bars from
the right.

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TRADOS Basics - Performing a TRADOS Analysis

Repetitions
100%
95-99%
85-94%
75-84%
50-74%
No match
Total

Internal repetitions in the document (sentences that

occur several times within a document)
These segments are identical in the TM and the
document.
These segments are very similar in the TM and the
document. There are only minimum changes for the
translator to make: a comma, a full stop, etc.
These segments are very similar in the TM and the
document. There are few changes to make: a capital
letter, a word to replace, etc.
These segments are similar in the TM and the document.
There are some changes to make: a word or two to
replace, a word that has to be moved, etc.
These segments are quite different in the TM and in
the document. It will be necessary to make lots of
modifications.
These segments have no similar or vaguely similar
equivalent in the TM, so they have to be translated
from scratch.
Total number of segments, words, etc.

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STEP 3: Interpreting the analysis

Terminology

Page 21

All the segments that are 100% identical (i.e. there is total
overlap between the TM and document) are called 100%
matches. Here the TM has total recall, and the translator has
nothing to do.
The segments that have between 50 and 99% in common
are called fuzzy matches or fuzzies.
The segments that have less than 50% in common are called
no matches.

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