Filtering in Translation Workspace XLIFF Editor

Filtering in the XLIFF Editor for Translation Workspace is a brilliant solution, and I think it’s the first translation tool that really helps the proofing process.

It can be a difficult task to make a translation tool that is useful for all translators as we all work in different ways, but the filters in the Translation Workspace XLIFF Editor can be used no matter how you process the files.

Depending on the files and the file analysis we even work in different ways on different projects. If the project consists of mainly no matches and low fuzzy matches the files are translated and then proofed by another person.

If a project consists of many 100% matches and 90-99% matches the translator often does the proofing of these while editing the strings. But handling this can be difficult when the files are being proofed, and we don’t want to spend time proofing the same strings twice.

We have previously developed our own tool where you can color the text in a document using different colors depending on the match percentage. This way we can easily filter out for example 90-100% matches if the translator have already done the proofing of these. The main problem with this proces is that the tool runs in Word only, so we have been using it for files translated using Logoport and Trados with Word and for files translated in TagEditor where we have to copy and paste the files to Word before running the tool.

In XLIFF Editor we can now save a lot of steps and time.

How to filter in XLIFF Editor

In XLIFF Editor there are two types of filters: Document Filter and Source/Target filter.

The first filter is the drop down Filter in the top left of the XLIFF Editor window. You use the filter by selecting the appropriate filter in the drop down and then click Filter in front of the drop down and select Apply Document Filter.

The filter Translatable will show all strings that have already been translated and all untranslated strings. The filter Untranslated will hide all translated strings, so that you as a translator can concentrate on new content.

As described earlier we often need a filter to hide all 90-100% matches, and for that we need to create a custom filter. See How to: Create a custom filter in XLIFF Editor. When using this filter the proofreader can concentrate on the strings that the translator haven’t already proofread.

The Source/Target filter can be used to either show only the source texts (the ‘S’ icon), show only the target texts (the ‘T’ icon) or show both source and target (the ‘B’ icon). This is also helpful during proofreading and editing. When proofreading your own translations it can be a huge benefit to hide the source texts if you are sure that you have interpreted the content correctly. If you are proofreading or editing a file that was translated by another person you need to check the translations against the source, and then you can click ‘B’ to show both the source and the translations.