Sometimes, you will get a bilingual RTF file or a DOC/X file from a client that uses Déjà Vu or memoQ (this kind of files can also proceed from any other tool including Studio).
Please ask your client first to replace this file with a XLIFF file – this is the cleaner and better way to work.
But if the client or the PM is unable or unwilling to do so, you should follow these steps.
- Open the RTF file in Word/OpenOffice.
- File with empty segments: If the table cells in the target column are all empty, simply copy the source segments to the target segments. Select the whole table and set it to Format > Hidden. Now select only the source segments on the right side and uncheck the Hidden format. In other words: Mark anything as hidden except the source segments.
- File with pre-translated segments: This is somehow fiddly. If there are only few pre-translated cells/segments, you might proceed as above and then enter these segments manually. Or you might copy these segments to Excel/Calc and import them in CafeTran via Memory > Import > Import MS Excel memory.
- Save it as docx and import it in CafeTran.
- Translate and proofread the file.
- Export the file, open it in Word/OpenOffice, select the whole table and uncheck Hidden under Format.
- Save the file as rtf.
This is how a segment of such a Déjà Vu file looks like in CafeTran:
This is how a segment of such a memoQ file looks like in CafeTran:
Not really nice and user-friendly, but there is not CaféTran to blame.
Please note the following points:
- Due to the fact of clumsy tag placeholders (e. g. {103} in a Déjà Vu RTF file) the subsegment and the auto-completion features are not functioning as well as with XLIFF files.
- As these bracket tags are not identified as such, you have no QA for these tags.
- You cannot really control if the file will reimport properly.
- The transfer rtf > docx > rtf should not cause any problem, but memoQ is desperately less robust than Déjà Vu in this respect.
The only advantage – compared to the XLF files – is that you can export a bilingual file in CafeTran.
Removing the tags out of the view file
If you do not get any XLIFF file from the client and this view file is quite big with many tags, you can follow the tutorial RegEx for translating DVX external view tables in memoQ written by Kevin Lossner – but you need a memoQ installation for this.
