Microsoft MT plugin settings

Set up the Microsoft Translator Text API to work with memoQ.

How to get here

1. At the top of the memoQ window, click the Resource console  icon. The Resource console window opens.
2. In the Server URL list, choose or type the server's address. Or, to see local resources only, choose My computer. Click the Select  button.
3. In the left-side pane, click the MT settings  icon. The MT settings pane appears.
4. For projects with more than one target language: In the top-right corner, choose a language from the Target language dropdown list if needed. Or, to use the same MT settings for all target languages, do not change the default value (All languages).
5. Select the MT settings resource you are using, and click Edit under the list.
6. On the Services tab, find the plugin and click its row. If it is active, click its row to open the Microsoft MT plugin settings window. If it is grayed out, click its row once to turn it on, then click it again to open the settings.
   

What can you do?

1. Get access - start a new Azure subscription. You can sign up for a one-month free trial. Although Microsoft will ask for credit card details, the lowest plan gives you 2,000,000 (two million) characters for free each month. Click the Subscribe to Microsoft Translator link. Follow the instructions to set up your subscription.

2. Return to memoQ. In the Microsoft MT plugin settings window, enter the Key you received in the Azure Marketplace. If you have access to a custom MT engine, enter its Category ID, too.

   The current version of Microsoft Translator (V3) offers neural machine translation for many language combinations. Neural machine translation provides slightly better accuracy and a more fluent translation in some cases. To learn how each of the plugin's languages are supported, visit this web page.

3. Normally, when memoQ sends text to Microsoft, the tags are not sent. The translation you get back from Microsoft will not contain any tags. memoQ will insert all the tags at the end of the machine-translated text. Choose how to handle tags with the Formatting and tags dropdown:

   • To use no formatting and no tags: Choose Use plain text only.
   • To use formatting but use no tags: Choose Use text and formatting.
   • To use both formatting and tags: Choose Use both formatting and tags.

4. If you send tags to Microsoft, choose the format: XML or HTML. MT services sometimes have problems with tags. Try both options, and see which one works better for your language pairs.

   Different settings work better for some language pairs? On the Resource Console, clone your MT settings, and in the cloned one, choose the other option from the Request format dropdown. You now have two MT settings resources, and can use the best one for each project.

5. To leave segments out of machine translation: In the Skip segments region:

   1. Check the Regular expression check box, and enter a regex into the text box below. Segments with text that match the regex will not be sent for machine translation.

   2. Check the More tags than check box, and enter a number in the box. Segments with more tags than this will not be sent for machine translation.

      The sent text can have more tags than the segment: When memoQ sends a segment to an MT service, formatting that you see in the translation grid (bold, italic, etc.) becomes tags. These also count in this limit.

When you finish

To save the settings and return to the Default resources tab of the Options window (or to the Resource console): Click OK, then click OK again.

To return to the Default resources tab of the Options window (or to the Resource console), without saving the new settings: Click Cancel, then click Cancel again.

To use the MT output in the translation editor:

1. Open a project with a supported language pair.
2. On the left side of the Project home or memoQ online project screen, click Settings.
3. In the top bar, click the MT settings  icon.
4. Choose the MT profile in the project, or one you want to add to the project. Below the list, click Edit.
5. On the Services tab of the Edit machine translation settings window, check the plugin's check box on the left.
6. On the Settings tab of the Edit machine translation settings window, in the Translation results area, choose a setting other than Off.
7. Open a document for editing, and see the machine-translated suggestions.

To use the MT output in pre-translation:

1. Open a project with a supported language pair.
2. On the left side of the Project home or memoQ online project screen, click Settings.
3. In the top bar, click the MT settings  icon.
4. Choose the MT settings resource in the project, or one you want to add to the project. Below the list, click Edit.
5. On the Services tab of the Edit machine translation settings window, check the plugin's check box on the left.
6. On the Settings tab of the Edit machine translation settings window, select the plugin from the Pre-translation dropdown.
7. Run Pre-translate. In the Pre-translate and statistics window, check the Use machine translation if there is no TM match check box. (memoQ will remember this.)