SDL Trados

SDL Trados

Trados develops and markets tools for professional translators such as translation memory systems, terminology management software and text alignment systems.

Project structure in Trados?

It is important to create a set project structure before you begin the conversion process. An established project structure will ensure that a clean copy of the source STF file is kept for verification purposes later on in the process; it keeps the files used for translation separate from the vital source files.

S-Tagger never changes the name of the files it is working on. The converted STF file has the same name as the source MIF or IASCII file; only the extension is different. The STF file has an *.rtf or an *.rtf.ttx, or *.txt extension, depending on the output file format that you select during conversion. If you do not set up a good project structure, you run the risk of overwriting, moving or deleting vital file information.

S-Tagger creates three new files for each MIF/IASCII file that is converted:

• a source STF file – to be used during and/or at the end of the translation process for verification
• an ORG file – to be used as the basis for converting the translated STF file back to its original format
• a target copy of the STF file – to be used as the file for translation

When beginning to work with S-Tagger, you need to specify three file locations for:

• the MIF/IASCII files
• the source STF files (S-Tagger will also automatically place the ORG files in this folder)
• the target STF files

What is an STF file?

An STF file is a tagged text file that contains translatable text from a FrameMaker or Interleaf file. STF is a text-only markup language which replaces the formatting from FrameMaker or Interleaf source files with brief coded statements (tags).

When S-Tagger converts the MIF/IASCII files to STF files, they can be saved as TRADOStag (TTX), Workbench RTF, or TXT files depending on your conversion settings.

After conversion with S-Tagger, there are two editing environments that can be used with Translator's Workbench to carry out interactive translation of the STF file:

• TagEditor
• Word

TagEditor supports translation of STF files in TRADOStag and Workbench RTF format; Word supports translation of STF files in RTF format only. When working with STF files, you translate the text as you would normally, then manipulate the necessary tags so that the translated text is formatted in the best way to suit your translation. Strict rules apply to moving, adding or deleting tags. You translate the text, never the tags.

What are the S TAGGERS?

The S-Taggers are a conversion utility for FrameMaker and Interleaf files. S-Tagger technology converts the FrameMaker MIF or Interleaf IASCII files into STF, a tagged text format that is compatible with SDL Trados. There are two separate S-Tagger components, S-Tagger for FrameMaker and S-Tagger for Interleaf.

All formatting information in the original source file is presented as translation-friendly tags, known as S-Tags. The STF file is comprised of these tags and the translatable text. You can translate files using TagEditor, a specialized editing interface for tagged text formats, or Microsoft Word.

After translation, you can use the tag verification features in TagEditor and in the S-Taggers to verify the tag content of your target STF files. Successful verification guarantees successful conversion to MIF/IASCII. When your STF files have been verified, you can convert the STF files back to their original file format.

The S-Taggers are used in conjunction with the Font Mappers, which specify the fonts that you wish to map quickly and easily. This is necessary when working with Asian languages such as Japanese.