Extension

.vtt

Smartling Identifier

vtt

Example File

subtitle.vtt

Resources

W3.org - WebVTT

Character (character name)

Escape sequence

< (less-than)

&lt;

> (greater-than)

&gt;

& (ampersand)

&amp;

' (apostrophe or single quote)

&apos;

" (double-quote)

&quot;

Directive

placeholder_format_custom

Values

Description

Specifies a custom placeholder format. Any text in your file matching the regular expression you provide will be captured as a placeholder.

Examples

smartling.placeholder_format_custom=(\{\{.+?\}})

Any characters enclosed in double curly brackets (e.g., {{first name}}) will be treated as a placeholder.

See Placeholders in Resource Files for more on placeholders.

Directive

entity_escaping

Values

(case-insensitive)

Smartling Translate Supported

Yes

Description

Controls whether base characters ( > < & " ) are "escaped" into entities when delivering translations. This can be set universally for the whole file via API, or by setting the directive at the top/start of the file. The directive can also be placed inline to control the behavior of specific strings.

Examples

For example, your translation might look like this:
​This is an <hr> & " example string4

By default, using the "auto" setting, we will assume this is HTML from the <hr> tag.

When the translated file is downloaded, the translated string will be escaped as:
​This is an <hr> &amp; &quot; example string4

Using smartling.entity_escaping = false will allow is above string to appear unescaped.

Directive

entity_escaping_strategy

Values

propagate | none

Smartling Translate Supported

Yes

Description

Used to retain entity escaping for all non-base entities. For example, normally we turn &copy; into © but if we use this new directive the translation will automatically update to use escaping from the source. For each entity character, we'll check to see if it was escaped in the source and try to match (propagate) it in the target.

The default is none which is the current behavior, which recognizes HTML4 entities only - if HTML5 entities are required as well, you must use the entity_escaping_type=propagate directive.

​propagate will only affect non-base entities - all named entities except &amp; , &quot;, &lt;, &gt; . Base entities continue to be controlled by HTML detection and the entity_escaping directive.

If the same character is both escaped and unescaped in the same string, propagate will return the characters in the translation escaped in the same order as they were in the source. However, if there are a different number of characters in the translation where the translation process removed or added some and the escaping is inconsistent among them, propagate will escape all entities for that character.

This does not affect source content at all - so using it will not result in new strings.

Numerical entities are not considered at all with this directive, and are treated normally.

Examples

smartling.entity_escaping_strategy = propagate

If the same character is both escaped and unescaped in the same string, propagate will return the characters in the translation escaped in the same order as they were in the source.

However, if there are a different number of characters in the translation where the translation process removed or added some and the escaping is inconsistent among them, propagate will escape all entities for that character.

This does not affect source content at all - so using it will not result in new strings.

propagate will only affect non-base entities - all named entities except &amp; , &quot;, &lt;, &gt;. Base entities continue to be controlled by HTML detection and the entity_escaping directive.

Directive

entity_escaping_type

Values

html4 (default)|html5

(case-insensitive)

Smartling Translate Supported

Yes

Description

By default, all html4 entities are unescaped, except the basic set: &lt; &gt; &amp; &quot;.

When this directive is set to html5, all html5 entities will be unescaped as well.

If you choose to set this directive to html5, you must also use the entity_escaping_strategy=propagate directive

Examples

smartling.entity_escaping_type = html5

Directive

force_inline_for_tags

Values

A comma-separated HTML tag list

Smartling Translate Supported

Yes

Description

This parameter forces the HTML parser to treat the listed tags as inline. The difference between block and inline tags is that block tags are used to split HTML into strings, whereas inline tags are included in strings.

Examples

smartling.force_inline_for_tags = external_link,reference

Any <external_link> or <reference> tags will be parsed as inline tags. Smartling will not create separate strings for content in these tags.

Directive

vtt_key_type

Values

Smartling Translate Supported

Yes

Description

This directive can change the key detection type.

time_range = time range is treated as a key.

ID = cue id or caption will be treated as a key.

If the value is id, but the caption for a cue is not present - the key for the cue is null.

Examples

smartling.vtt_key_type = id

smartling.vtt_key_type = time_range

Directive

vtt_variant_type

Values

A comma-separated HTML tag list

Smartling Translate Supported

Yes

Description

This directive can change the variant detection type.

time_range = time range is treated as a variant.

ID = cue id or caption will be treated as a variant.

If the value is id, but the caption for a cue is not present - the variant for the cue is null.

Examples

smartling.vtt_variant_type = id

smartling.vtt_variant_type = time_range

Directive

whitespace_trim

Values

on|yes|true or off|no|false or leading|trailing

The default value is on.

Smartling Translate Supported

Yes

Description

A whitespace is any character or series of characters that represent horizontal or vertical space in typography. When rendered, a whitespace character is not a visible mark, but does occupy an area or space on a page.

Although whitespaces are necessary within a string (typically to separate words), unnecessary whitespaces can be found at the start of a string (leading) and at the end of a string (trailing).

With this directive, you can trim whitespaces, as it enables or disables whitespace trim management for the ingested strings.

Whitespace is optionally trimmed from content then re-inserted on download for convenience so that translators do not have to manage the extra spaces. However, content owners may want to retain surrounding whitespace so that translators can
manipulate it during translation.

By default, the leading and trailing whitespaces are trimmed.

You can choose to disable trimming or specify trimming for leading or trailing whitespaces.

The directive can only be used as the API request parameter.

Examples

smartling.whitespace_trim=on

Smartling will trim leading and trailing whitespaces (default)

smartling.whitespace_trim=off

Smartling will not trim leading or trailing whitespaces

smartling.whitespace_trim=leading

Smartling will trim only leading whitespaces

smartling.whitespace_trim=trailing

Smartling will trim only trailing whitespaces