This feature is available for Agency Account Owners and Translation Resource Managers on the Jobs Dashboard. You can export and import content for all languages and workflow steps in a Job at once, or for one language at a time from Job Details. If you are a Translation Resource user, read our documentation on Translating Offline.

There may be occasions when you need to take a Job offline and work on it locally. To avoid having your team's work lost for future reference, it is important to remember to import translations back to Smartling once complete. As a requirement, this functionality needs to be enabled on the workflow the Job is authorized in by your client.

It's always advised not to take your work offline, unless absolutely necessary. Working offline means you lose all the features of Smartling that make translation quick and seamless, such as easy access to the Translation Memory, Glossary, Style Guide, the ability to open Issues, and translate with Visual Context. Here are some important considerations when using exporting and importing content off the Smartling platform.

Important Considerations for Exporting/Importing Jobs

Loss of transparency

As an Agency Account Owner or Translation Resource Manager, you can no longer track your team's progress of translating the content in the translation workflow, and have no insight as to how many resources are translating the content, or how the content is being translated offline.

Loss of data

In addition to loss of transparency in a Job's progress, all data gathered in Smartling reports do not apply to offline translations. This means you have no insight into translation velocity, and changes will not have the data needed to evaluate how long it took for the content to be translated, edited, and how many changes were made by editors.

Loss of context

Translators lose the ability to get the contextual view provided by Visual Context in the CAT Tool, which is key for ensuring they are translating the content under the right context. It is also a vital feature for you to minimize questions around what the content is about, and resolving issues with bad translations.

Loss of direction

If character limits have been applied to strings, this direction will be lost in the exported Job. Because the limits are lost in the exported file, they are not present in the imported file either, meaning strings exceeding character limits can be imported and submitted to the next step in the workflow.

Furthermore, if a linguist has a question about the source content, you won't be able to give them direction by Smartling's Issue feature. Of course, you can take your conversation offline, but you lose the ease of threaded dialog directly associated with a string.

Loss of leverage

Although a TMX file of your Translation Memory can also be included in the export, your client's leverage configuration and SmartMatch settings will no longer apply, resulting in the Job taking longer to complete.

Loss of quality checks

The Quality Check Profile that your client configured to suit their translation requirements will not assess translations offline. Furthermore, when translations are imported, they can be submitted to the next step in the workflow, regardless if they flag an error, even if it is set to high severity. Poor offline translations that are not corrected can then be saved to the Translation Memory (see Saving imported translations to the Translation Memory).

Translation Memory integrity risks

As imported translations are completed without Quality Checks, without context or direction, and are saved to the Translation Memory once they are edited or published, your client's Translation Memory is exposed to contamination of poor translations. Imported translations can even be in a different language than the target language requested in the Job. The process to remedy this error in their TM is painstakingly long and time-consuming and could result in putting the account at risk for your business.

Markup and code integrity risks

When working online in Smartling, we ensure that all underlying code and markup is protected. Translators cannot alter it, since we protect it by masking it. When you export the content under a flat file (.xliff) all the code is visible, and can be altered by anyone with access to the file. This can result in broken code and functionality, leading to more developer time spent on QA and resolving any issues that might come up because of changed code.

Time & cost

The above list of important factors when translating offline, ultimately results in your translations taking longer, neglecting quality, possibly spoiling your client's translation memory and target codebase.

Furthermore, if a Content Owner modifies the Job at all, such as by excluding strings or updating the source content, these changes will not be reflected in your exported files. This can result in your team translating strings that no longer require translation, leading to unpaid work by your team.

We recommended proceeding with caution with offline Jobs.

Prerequisites

• Assignment and offline translation must be enabled for the translation step the Job is in.
  • Content Owners can enable this in the workflow's settings.
• The Job must be authorized and in progress - not awaiting authorization or published.

Export and Import from the Jobs Dashboard

Use the Jobs Dashboard to export or import content for all languages and workflow steps in a Job at once. The Export Content and Import Content actions appear only on Jobs that have at least one workflow step with offline work enabled.

Export content

1. Go to the Jobs Dashboard and find the Job you want to export.

2. Click the ellipsis (⋯) on the Job and select Export Content.

   

3. Select the languages and workflow steps you want to export. Click Select All to include everything available. Only workflow steps that contain content are listed.

4. Choose which files to include:

   • XLIFF is always included.
   • Include Translation Memory files (TMX) is optional.
   • Include Glossary files (TBX) is optional.

   

5. Click Export Content.
6. When the translations are complete, follow these steps to import translations.

Downloading your export

• Your export downloads as a single .zip file. Inside the .zip:
  • Each language has its own folder named with the locale (for example, fr-FR). The folder contains the XLIFF file and, if you included Translation Memory files, a TMX file for that language.
  • If you included Glossary files, they are in a Glossaries folder at the top level of the .zip, with one .tbx file per glossary.
• If preparing the export package takes a while, Smartling sends a download link to your email address. The link is valid for 7 days and only works for the user who started the export.
• Exporting multiple files, especially multiple Translation Memory files, can take up to 2 minutes.

Import content

1. Go to the Jobs Dashboard and find the Job you want to import translations to.

2. Click the ellipsis (⋯) on the Job and select Import Content.

   

3. Select or drag and drop one or more translated .xliff files.
   • Only .xliff files are supported for content import.
4. Choose an import option:
   • Save and remain in current step: keeps the imported content in the workflow step it is currently in. The user assigned to the step can review and submit it.
   • Save and submit to next step: saves the imported content and moves it to the next workflow step.
5. Click Import Files.

6. Smartling shows the import result for each file. After the import completes, the Import Files button changes to View Strings. Click it to review the imported content.

   

If a string fails to import, its target translation is blank. The most common cause is that tags used in the offline translation are not supported in Smartling for that file type.

Saving imported translations to the Translation Memory

Imported translations are not saved to your client's Translation Memory immediately. This lets you review them first. They are saved once they are edited manually in Smartling or, if no edits are made, once they reach the Published step in the workflow.

Export and Import from Job Details (One Language at a Time)

If you only need one language, you can export or import from the Job Details page. This method works differently from the Jobs Dashboard: you download each file separately, and the import has no import options.

Export

1. On the Jobs Dashboard, click View Details on the Job.

2. Under Actions, click the ellipsis (⋯) next to the language you want to export, then select Export.

   

3. In the Export Task dialog, click the download link for each file you want:

   • Download Content: the XLIFF file with the content to translate.
   • Download Glossary: a TBX file. Each glossary available for the Job has its own link.
   • Download TM: the TMX file of the Translation Memory.

   

4. When the translations are complete, follow these steps to import translations.

Import

1. On the Jobs Dashboard, click View Details on the Job.
2. Under Actions, click the ellipsis (⋯) next to the language you want to import, then select Import.
3. In the Import Translations dialog, select or drag and drop the translated .xliff file.
   • Only .xliff files are supported for content import.
4. Click Upload.

5. When the upload finishes, the dialog shows Import completed successfully and how many strings were uploaded. Click Review and submit translations to open the strings, or close the dialog to leave them for the user assigned to the step.