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< (less-than)

&lt;

> (greater-than)

&gt;

& (ampersand)

&amp;

' (apostrophe or single quote)

" (double-quote)

translate_paths

Example of single tag pointer:
<!-- smartling.translate_paths = root/node/subnode -->

Example of tags pointers:

<!-- smartling.translate_paths = root/node/subnode, root/node2 -->

Example of attributes pointers:

<!-- smartling.translate_paths = root/node.name, root/node2.name -->

Example of mixed pointers:

<!-- smartling.translate_paths = root/node/subnode, root/node2.name -->

sltrans

• TRANSLATE
• NOTRANSLATE

(case-insensitive)

Use this directive to enable or disable processing of translation strings in the file. You must turn translation back on once you're done with notranslate.

Any content with this tag will not appear in the Smartling dashboard, but will appear in your translated file in your original source language.

<!-- smartling.sltrans = notranslate -->

Strings below this directive will be captured as strings, but excluded from translation.

<!-- smartling.sltrans = translate -->

Strings below this directive will be translated. 

Currently, supported formats are:

• HTML - string value will be parsed as HTML
• TXT - string value will be parsed as plain text with strings separated by new lines.
• Markdown - string value will be parsed as Markdown.
• block - parse an entire element's contents as one string - treating all nested elements as inline.
• @default - (note the leading at-sign) string value will be treated as simple text.

Specifies the format of strings for the specified paths, and can enable HTML inside another file format.

It is important to consider the side effects of HTML parsing, including losing keys, and precedence rules for other formats.

Smartling parses values of all nodes as HTML.

If your document has disparate kinds of strings that are used in different contexts, for example, if your single XML file contains application UI strings, with standard string formatting and placeholders, together with one or few keys that are just giant HTML documents (example; TOS or Privacy Policy).

variants_enabled

true|TRUE|on|ON OR false|FALSE|off|OFF

When enabled, Smartling will make strings unique using variant metadata. Must be used with the translate_paths directive to specify keys, which provides the information needed to generate variant metadata.

If you have previously uploaded a file with variants turned off, and re-upload the file with variants on, Smartling will capture all content as new strings. You can configure SmartMatch to automatically match the existing translations.

• auto (default) 
• true
• yes 
• false
• no

(case-insensitive)

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.

For example, your XML file might have content that looks like this:
<string>This is an &lt;hr&gt; &amp; &quot; example string4</string>

The content will appear like this in Smartling:
This is an <hr> & " example string4

<string>This is an &lt;hr&gt; &amp;amp; &amp;quot; example string4</string>

<string>This is an &lt;hr&gt; &amp; &quot; example string4</string>

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.

<!-- 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.

entity_escaping_type

html4 (default)|html5

(case-insensitive)

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

<!-- smartling.entity_escaping_type = html5 -->

force_inline_for_tags

A comma-separated HTML tag list

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.

<!-- 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.

instruction_paths

Comma-separated paths to translation instructions.

Points paths to where translator instructions are located in the file.

<!-- smartling.instruction_paths = data/unit/instruction, data/sub-level/unit/instruction, data/item/instruction -->

variants_strategy

• none (default)
• context_match
• repetition_indexed

(case-insensitive)

This directive can only be used as an API parameter.

context_match: enables ICE variants functionality.

repetition_indexed: enables the "string indexes as variants for repeated strings" functionality that is the default behavior for business docs.

This directive overrides the variants enabled directive.

<!-- smartling.force_block_for_tags=br -->

Enables string separation by <br> tags

placeholder_format

Specifies iOS-style placeholders for the file.

<!-- smartling.placeholder_format_custom = REGEX-->

<!-- smartling.placeholder_format_custom=\{([^}]+)\} -->

Any characters surrounded by curly brackets, e.g., {first name}, will be treated as a placeholder.

Sets the percentage by which original strings are inflated when downloading pseudo translations. If this directive is not set, pseudo translations are 30 percent longer than the original strings.

<!-- smartling.pseudo_inflation = 80 -->

Downloaded pseudo translations will increase the length of original strings by 80 percent.

whitespace_trim

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

The default value is on.

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.

<!-- 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