Translation problems with Trados

[teriw]

I'm working on a help system that will be translated into several European languages. The files have been sent to a translations company. When they view the English files in Trados, there are unexpected breaks in the sentences. In the examples I've seen, there is nothing special about where the breaks occur. The translation company refers to a "control character" being present at the point of the line break. I'm using RoboHelp HTML X5 and the output is Microsoft HTML help. The translation company has all of the source files. Thanks in advance for any information.

Teri

[---Dirk_Bock]

Teri,

have you looked at the true code of those breaks? There may be tags, e.g. SPAN-tags, which RoboHelp loves to insert into the code.

On the other hand, the translation agency should be able to tune their segmentation rules so that this doesn't happen.

---Dirk Bock

[teriw]

Hi Dirk,

Thanks for the suggestion. We did look at it and there are SPAN tags. In the True Code view, I can see that the line breaks, but there are no characters. Are you aware of a script that can be run to remove SPAN tags or other characters that RoboHelp inserts, but that aren't necessary?

Thanks,

Teri

[---Dirk_Bock]

Hi Teri,

such a script would make a nice christmas present. Alas, I haven't found one.

To remove such unneeded code, I use the free editor KompoZer ( http://kompozer.sourceforge.net). Or you may try to use some Find&Replace tool, if the constructs in your code look very much the same.

The RoboHelp editor is easy to use and allows for the simply use of some DHTML effects, but the code it produxes is far from perfect.

Greetings

---Dirk Bock

[Jared Hess]

Does this code get generated only when within the RoboHelp environement? We translate our Html Help project into several languages using Trados as well, but we don't give our translators the RoboHelp source files. Instead we decompile the .chm file and then send them the .htm files to translate. Then we recompile the .chm file on our end. Not sure if this option works for you though. Good luck.

[---Dirk_Bock]

This code will be generated if you work with the RH WYSIWIG-editor. Many of those tags are dependent of the editing history of the file, so you may have few if any of those problems. Using the decompile function to generate the HTML to be translated will not result in a better code.

Greetings

---Dirk Bock

[EileenPalsson]

Hi, just a quick comment:
We, too, use RoboHelp XP and the output is MS HTML Help. We send our RH source files to our translation agency and they use TRADOS to translate the text to various languages. No one has ever complained about line breaks, and the translations we get back look great (at least in that respect). So it can be done. As Dirk said, maybe they are able to fine-tune their segmentation rules.
Good luck!
/Eileen

[EileenPalsson]

Hi, just a quick comment:
We, too, use RoboHelp XP and the output is MS HTML Help. We send our RH source files to our translation agency and they use TRADOS to translate the text to various languages. No one has ever complained about line breaks, and the translations we get back look great (at least in that respect). So it can be done. As Dirk said, maybe they are able to fine-tune their segmentation rules.
Good luck!
/Eileen

[Newsgroup_User]

Given that I may be needing to have my projects translated, what are the RH
files that must be sent? And if you don't mind, can you give the name of
your translation agency?

Best regards

Mike
"EileenPalsson" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:entgvm$1pv$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Hi, just a quick comment:
> We, too, use RoboHelp XP and the output is MS HTML Help. We send our RH
source
> files to our translation agency and they use TRADOS to translate the text
to
> various languages. No one has ever complained about line breaks, and the
> translations we get back look great (at least in that respect). So it can
be
> done. As Dirk said, maybe they are able to fine-tune their segmentation
rules.
> Good luck!
> /Eileen
>

[JP Cornelissen]

Hi,

I also used to have some issues when translating RoboHTML files using Trados (we did our own in house translation from English to Dutch and German). I'll try to give some background information which may help.

Note that all this is from years ago with Trados version 3, they are now at 6.5 or even newer (which we don't have), so things might have been changed. I also don't have v3 installed at the moment, so I write this from the top of my head without verifying. I also copied some text from the "TRADOS File Formats Reference Guide" which can be downloaded from http://www.translationzone.com/en/downloads/.

- Tageditor (from Trados) is the program that is used to translate html, xml and other 'tagged' files.

- When you are translating a html file, you need to 'tell' the program that it is a html file. This is done via a 'Tag Settings File' (or configuration or DTD file). This file contains the various HTML tags and specifies for each tag the available parameters (eg 'onmouseover', 'class', etc.). It also defines if the tag is external (structural tags) or internal (formatting or other inline tags). Tageditor uses this file to scan the document to determine on how to handle HTML, SGML or XML elements, such as tags and character entities (ie protecting tags to allow translation or not). TRADOS ships with a series of built-in files that contain predefined tag settings for certain document types.

- The tag settings file also contains the following a section, I guess this speaks for itself and may even answer your question.
[ReaderSettings]
KeepLineBreaks=No
KeepLineBreaksAfterPunctuation=No
Codepage=English
AllowTranslatableScripts=No

- As said, I also had some issues with my first translations. Some things I could fix by changing and adding some tgas via the "Tag Settings Manager" (such as the SPAN tag and a setting for the "kadov" entry). I could not fix another issue, untill someone (I think via Translationzone.com) told me to manually add an entry in the tag settings file. I can't find the exact details, but I believe it was one of the ReaderSettings I mentioned above.


I am willing to share my 'RoboHelp' tag setting file. I also wrote a small help file with instructions on translating RH files. Just drop me a line if you want me to email it to you. Just one important note, both the tag settings and the help file are from years ago and may be badly outdated.
- The settings file is from TagEditor 3 and may not be compatible with their latest version.
- My help file is based on a RH version prior to X5, it does not cover build tags or any other new stuff that was introduced in X5 or 6.