Export / Import a Smartling Glossary

If you prefer watching to reading, check out our Video Tutorial on Glossary Import & Export.

Export

There are two scenarios where you might want to use the Smartling Glossary export function:

1. To review, revise and update an existing Glossary
2. To follow the correct Smartling format when creating a new Glossary from scratch, offline and locally

Export to Update an Existing Glossary

To make bulk-updates to any existing Glossary, it is recommended that you first export the Glossary in an Excel, CSV, TBX V2 Core or TBX V3 Core format and revise the file offline. This will guarantee that you are updating the latest and currently active version of the Glossary.

Additional Resources for TBX Files

• TBX-Core Dialects
• Download TBX-Core sample files

Differences in Export Options

It is important to consider the difference in the two export options below.

Exporting a Glossary from the Glossary List View is recommended if your intention is also to bulk-remove unwanted entries from your Glossary. This is because it ensures you are exporting all active entries within that Glossary. This ensures you have all entries in your file to work on, so when it comes to importing, if you choose to archive any entries you removed from the file, Smartling archives all removed entries, and not the entries that were filtered out when exporting the file.

Exporting a Glossary from the Glossary Entry View is not recommended if your intention is also to bulk-remove unwanted entries from your Glossary. This because you may have filters set in the left-hand panel, which means that you are only exporting a certain portion of your Glossary. If this is the case, when you import the Glossary file, and you select to bulk archive any entries that have been removed from the Glossary file, Smartling will achieve all entries that are missing from the file, which may include entries that were filtered out upon export.

Exporting a Glossary from the Glossary Entry View is recommended if your intention is to modify a specific portion of your Glossary, or to add languages terms or metadata to a specific portion of your Glossary.

Export from the Glossary List View

To export an existing Glossary from the Glossary List View:

1. Go to Account Settings > Linguistic Assets 
2. Under Linguistic Packages, click Glossaries.
3. Click the ellipsis beside the Glossary you want to export
4. Click Export Glossary
5. Choose your desired file format and select the languages you want to include in the export
6. Once your new Glossary is ready, follow the steps to Update an existing Glossary with Import

Export from the Glossary Entry View

Alternatively, you can export the Glossary from the Glossary Entry View:

1. Go to Account Settings > Linguistic Assets 
2. Under Linguistic Packages, click Glossaries.
3. Click the Glossary name to enter the Glossary Entry View
4. What is your motivation for exporting the Glossary? Choose one of the following:
   • If your intention is also to bulk-remove unwanted entries from your Glossary, do not filter for specific entries to ensure you are exporting all entries in the Glossary. Select all by clicking the checkbox at the top of the columns, and click Select all matching.
   • If your intention is to modify entries/add languages-specific terms to a specific portion of your Glossary, filter and select as necessary.
5. Click Actions > Export
6. Choose your desired file format and select the languages you want to include in the export
7. Once your new Glossary is ready, follow the steps to Update an existing Glossary with Import
   
   

Export a Smartling Glossary Template

If you want to create a new Glossary, it is recommended that you follow the Smartling Glossary Template format, to guarantee a successful import of the new Glossary.

To export a Smartling Glossary Template:

1. Go to Account Settings > Linguistic Assets 
2. Under Linguistic Packages, click Glossaries.
3. Click the ellipsis beside the any Glossary
4. Click Export Glossary Template
5. Choose your desired file format and select the languages you want to include as languages columns in the exported template
6. Once your new Glossary is ready, follow the steps to Import a New Glossary
   
   

Import

When your Glossary is ready to import, you can choose to import the Glossary as a new Glossary, or import entries into an existing Glossary.

Here is an example Smartling Glossary template file. Please note, this does not include columns for any Glossary Custom Fields that you may have enabled for each language of your Glossary.

Tip: If you don't have data to populate any of the columns of our import template with, these columns can be kept empty. For your convenience, empty columns can be hidden or removed.

Please note that if the "ID" column is kept empty, a new glossary entry will be created.

If a column already contains terms/values from a previous import, but these terms/values are later removed and the column is left empty upon re-import to Smartling, this term/value will be deleted from the glossary.

On the other hand, if a column is deleted from the glossary file entirely, no updates will be made to the existing data for this column once the file gets imported to Smartling. Any pre-existing values in the deleted columns remain unaltered upon import.

Import a New Glossary

1. Go to Account Settings > Linguistic Assets 
2. Under Linguistic Packages, click Glossaries.
3. Click Create Glossary
4. In the Create Glossary dialog, add a name, description (if necessary), select the languages for your Glossary, and select any Glossary Custom Fields from the dropdown (if you have Glossary Custom Fields enabled)
5. Click Create
6. Once created, click the ellipsis beside the new Glossary you want to import a file into
7. Click Import Glossary
8. Choose your desired file format and select the languages you intend to include in the import

If your new Glossary file includes terms in languages that have not been selected when creating the Glossary in Smartling (step 4), these terms will not be imported. If the new Glossary in Smartling contains languages that are not included in the file import, those terms will not be listed as missing translation.

Update an existing Glossary with Import

Once you have completed updating an exported existing glossary, you are ready to import this file into Smartling.

To import updated terms into an existing Glossary:

1. Go to Account Settings > Linguistic Assets 
2. Under Linguistic Packages, click Glossaries.
3. Click the ellipsis beside the Glossary you want to import
4. Click Import Glossary
5. Select the Excel or CSV file from your local drive
6. (Talk to your CSM about enabling the following feature) If you exported a Glossary and removed any unwanted entries in your Glossary file, you can choose to archive those entries from the Glossary, by selecting the checkbox
   • Note, you cannot archive individual terms, only entire entries
7. Click Import

Alternatively, you can import the Glossary from the Glossary Entry View:

1. Go to Account Settings > Linguistic Assets 
2. Under Linguistic Packages, click Glossaries.
3. Click the Glossary name to enter the Glossary Entry View
4. Click Actions
5. Click Import
6. Select the Excel or CSV file from your local drive
7. (Talk to your CSM about enabling the following feature) If you exported a Glossary and removed any unwanted entries in your Glossary file, you can choose to archive those entries from the Glossary, by selecting the checkbox
   • Note, you cannot archive individual terms, only entire entries. This action archives all missing entries from the Glossary. Ensure that the Glossary file exported included all active entries and was unfiltered.
8. Click Import

Note: The comma symbol "," is used as a separator upon import. For a successful import, ensure terms do not contain commas.
If a term variation or a label contains a comma, please use a new line ("\n") in your glossary file to separate it from other term variations or labels upon import.

Smartling uses the UID for each Glossary entry to match the Entries to update details. If no UID is provided, we will create a new entry with all the associated information.

You currently cannot export or import any images associated with the Glossary entry. This functionality is only available through the Smartling platform.