This article is for Translators and Editors.
To make it easier and more efficient to complete translation tasks, you can customize the following CAT Tool settings:
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Preferences, which includes:
- Personal Dictionary
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are instrumental in getting the work done fast. You can modify the keyboard profile and any keyboard shortcut listed. Modifying the keyboard profile updates the displayed keyboard shortcuts only.
- Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts
- Select a profile from the drop-down list, or enter your shortcuts in the fields
- If you've worked in other CAT Tools, you can modify the keyboard short profile from the dropdown
- Modify any shortcut by simply clicking the field and pressing the shortcut
- The LQA shortcuts section will only be visible when you are working in an LQA-enabled workflow step. For more info, see Use keyboard shortcuts to perform LQA.
- Click Save
If a keyboard shortcut you're familiar with is not working as expected, make sure to check your settings so that it doesn't conflict with your preset shortcut.
A shortcut can only be applied to one command. If you try to apply a shortcut that is already in use, you will receive a warning message. The warning message will give you the opportunity to select a different shortcut or override the existing one. If you choose to override it, the previous shortcut will be erased, and you will need to choose a new and unique keyboard shortcut.
Many of the shortcuts are also found on the shortcuts bar, above the strings. Hover over the following keyboard shortcuts to reveal functionality and shortcuts. You can update any of them anytime from the settings.
Preferences
In addition to keyboard shortcuts, you can customize your translation and display options, as well as the font. Go to CAT Tool > Settings > Preferences.
Pre-populate Options
Pre-population is when fuzzy matches are pre-populated to the target string panel within the CAT Tool.
Insert a % TM Match threshold. This is used with the following configuration options:
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Pre-populate TM Match Threshold (%): Minimum fuzzy match % for which pre-population will occur.
- Once enabled, you can choose to automatically merge segments to apply string level TM match at the specified threshold.
- Selecting this checkbox means that if a string has segment-level matches that meet the threshold, they will pre-populate. However, if any segment does not meet the threshold, but string level match meets the threshold, the string segments are merged, and the string level match is applied.
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For example, if you set your threshold to TM matches over 75%;
In a multi-segment string, you might have a segment that doesn’t meet this threshold, e.g. because it’s only a 60% match for that segment.
But you might have a match available for the whole string that meets the threshold, e.g. an 80% match for the entire (merged) string.
Enabling this setting results in having a translated string by merging all segments and applying a pre-existing TM entry. - If you have inserted a threshold, ensure to switch it on in the next setting.
- Pre-populate TM matches if score is above {specified %}: Turns on the feature.
- Pre-populate machine translation if there's no TM match available over X%: You can set the threshold for the TM and MT pre-population. If pre-population machine translation is enabled, and there's no fuzzy match available above the threshold that has been set, the CAT tool with then pre-populate machine translation.
Pre-population does not overwrite translations that have already been loaded in the CAT Tool.
For repetitions, this means that as soon as the translation for the first instance of the repetition is saved, that translation will pre-populate throughout all the repetitions within the Job because they will be a 100% fuzzy match.
Any changes to that translation will need to be made manually throughout each repetition string separately. Furthermore, multi-segment matches are not used for pre-population even if the score is higher than other units from the Translation Memory.
Auto-Propagate Options
Auto-propagation is an automated way to keep the translations for string repetitions in sync across any given Job. With this setting, strings that have been saved in the TM can be automatically propagated as translations for exact repetition thereafter.
Auto-propagation is at the segment level (not string level), meaning the propagation occurs for the repeated segments. Translations that have been auto-propagated will also need to be saved before being submitted.
- Auto-propagate updates to 100% repetitions across all pages (if content is in a Job) or current page: If you have two or more draft or saved translations that are 100% matches, updating one of them will automatically update / auto-propagate the others (across all pages), provided that your content is in a Job.
- Notify before auto-propagating (recommended): By default, this setting is enabled. If you change one of the draft or saved translations, the Overwrite Translation dialog box will appear for you to confirm your action.
- Save auto-propagated strings: If this is turned OFF, any update to a repetition translation will still be auto-propagated, but propagated translations will remain as unsaved drafts. Saving an unedited repetition translation will not auto-save the other repetitions. Auto-save will not apply if the propagated repetition is a segment and the entire string is not a repetition.
This feature can only be accessed if the CAT Tool is filtered by a Job.
Autocorrect Options
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Replace straight quotes with typographic quotes: Available for French, German, Norwegian languages, Greek, Hungarian, and Czech.
- Enable this setting to choose to replace straight quotes with typographic quotes for any language.
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Automatically wrap quotes, parentheses, and brackets: When enabled, paired characters such as quotation marks, parentheses, and brackets can now be automatically wrapped around the text that they should be applied to.
Select the part of the translated text that should be enclosed in these characters.Then type only the opening character (e.g. the opening quotation mark or left parenthesis) to automatically insert the opening and closing characters around your selection.
- Automatically align source tags in the translation: Decide to automatically align tags for all translations inserted via pre-population or from the Language Resources panel. If switched on, tags can still be manually adjusted after automatic alignment.
Autocomplete
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Glossary Terms, Tags, and Placeholders: When you start to type a Glossary term, tag, or placeholder in the target field, you'll be presented with options which you can select from. If there are multiple items, you can use the arrow keys to go up or down.
If you are using the Smartling keyboard profile, use "Enter" to insert the item. For Trados and MemoQ, use the "Tab" key. (If not already configured, it can be done from within the Keyboard Shortcuts menu.)
Display Options
- Show tag values: Turn this on to enable an expanded view of the code. A simplified view makes it is easier to read the content because it hides the code within the CAT Tool.
- Display visual spaces in text: By turning this option on, a dot will appear to indicate spaces in both source and translation text.
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Automatic management for leading and trailing whitespace: By turning this off, users will have to manually handle leading and trailing whitespaces, particularly spaces that are needed between sentences.
- The recommended (and default) setting is on.
- Display visual spaces in text must be switched on to enable this setting.
- This setting is currently not available for Cantonese, Chinese, Japanese, and Yiddish locales.
- Always show TM extra info in the Language Resources panel: Enabling this feature displays TM extra information in the Language Resource panel. Extra information includes the entry's status (published or unpublished), the username and timestamp it was last used, and the TM the entry is stored in.
- Show glossary term information on hover: This setting controls if the glossary term information should appear when hovering over the glossary term. This is enabled by default. If you choose to disable this setting, you can always check glossary term information, if needed, from the Glossary tab in the CAT Tool.
- Show translation changes in string history: This setting will turn on visual change tracking in the History panel. Changes are tracked between each saved translation using green and red styling.
Insertable Bar Settings
Choose from the dropdown which special characters appear in the insertable bar above the editor. Additionally, a keyboard shortcut can be configured for each special character under Keyboard Shortcuts.
Editor Settings
Change the default font option to your preferred font and size.
The "automatically scroll string list" setting allows you to use the Context viewer to navigate through strings:
- When it’s toggled ON, clicking mapped context will automatically scroll you to the linked string in the editor
- When it’s OFF, clicking mapped context will not automatically scroll you to the linked string in the editor
MISCELLANEOUS
Choose to see a warning when saving an unedited fuzzy match
Personal Dictionary
Sometimes you may see underlined words in the CAT Tool, suggesting that there's a spelling error, when in fact, there isn't. Adding those words to the personal dictionary, that you know are correctly spelled, prevents them from appearing as a spelling error. Terms added to the personal dictionary will only be visible to you.
To add a term to the personal dictionary:
- Go to the CAT Tool > Settings > Personal Dictionary.
- Type in the word and click Add.
- Click X next to the term you want to delete.
- Click Save.
The CAT Tool can be customized to suit you and the way you work. It is recommended that you spend some time updating the CAT Tool settings.