Edit a translation memory
The Translation memory editor allows you to edit a translation memory directly. You can see the list of translation units, filter them, and edit each translation unit.
You can edit individual translation units directly without the translation memory editor: When you work on a translation, you have translation memory matches in the Translation results pane. Right-click a translation memory match, and choose View/Edit. The translation unit appears in the View or edit TM entry window.
Only one can edit a translation memory at a time: You can edit an online translation memory (coming from a memoQ server) if you have sufficient permissions. But only one user can edit a translation memory at a time. Editing an online translation memory may be slow, depending on the network connection and the workload of the memoQ server.
Translation memory editor is a tab, but doesn't belong to the project: The translation memory editor opens in a new tab in the main memoQ window. But it doesn't close when you close the project you're working on. You need to close it separately.
How to get here
From a project:
- Open a project.
- In Project home, click Translation memories. The Translation memories pane appears, with the list of translation memories available to you in the project.
- Right-click the name of the translation memory. In the menu, click Edit.
- The Filtering and sorting window appears. Normally, you would just click OK here. But if you need specific translation units - containing certain terms or added before or after a date -, fill in the conditions, and then click OK. If you click Cancel, memoQ returns to Project home.
From the Resource console:
- Open the Resource console.
- Click Translation memories. The Translation memories pane appears, with the list of term bases.
- Right-click the name of the translation memory. In the menu, click Edit.
- The Filtering and sorting window appears. Normally, you would just click OK here. But if you need specific translation units - containing certain terms or added before or after a date -, fill in the conditions, and then click OK. If you click Cancel, memoQ returns to the Resource Console.
What can you do?
Changes are not saved automatically: When you make changes to the translation memory, you need to save them. This is different from everywhere else in memoQ. To save changes: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Save changes.
Move about in the list by dragging the scroll bar, or using the mouse wheel. You can also press the up and down arrow keys.
- To select a row: Click the number of the entry on the left.
- To select a block of rows: Click the number of the first entry. Scroll to the last entry. Press and hold down Shift, and click the number of the last entry.
- To add a new row: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click New. A new, empty row appears at the bottom of the list. It has an number of -1. Click the source cell; type or paste text. Press Tab; type or paste text in the target cell.
- To delete the selected rows: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Delete. memoQ asks if you really want to delete the rows. Click Yes.
Don't forget to save: After you make changes, save them. On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Save changes. Or, press Ctrl+S.
Icons for each row: When you point to a row in the list, three icons appear: . Delete all tags; Delete row; Flag row.
- To edit text: Simply click a cell, and edit the text.
You can undo the changes you make: Press Ctrl+Z to do that.
- To find and replace text: Press Ctrl+H. The Find and replace window appears. Type the text you want to find. Type the replacement text. Choose if you want to search through just the source text, the target text, or both. Click OK.
Or, to start find and replace: On the Edit ribbon, click Find or Replace.
- To remove tags: Double-click a tag, or select it using Shift and the arrow keys. Press Delete. Or, on the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Selected Tags.
- To remove all tags from the entire row (both from the source and the target cell): Select the row. On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click All tags.
You can't restore tags after you remove them: Undo doesn't work for that, just text edits.
Don't forget to save: After you edit text or tags, save the changes. On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Save changes. Or, press Ctrl+S.
To list rows that contain a certain word or two in the source or the target text:
Type one or more words in the text box above the source column, or in the text box above the target column. To look for words with the exact same lowercase and uppercase letters: Check the aA (case sensitive search) check box. Press Enter.
It's slower over the network: If you are editing an online translation memory, this may take a while.
To set detailed conditions for the rows you want to list:
- At the top of the translation memory editor tab, click the funnel (Filter) icon. The Filtering and sorting window appears.
Or: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Filter/Sort.
- In the Filtering and sorting window, set the conditions. Then click OK.
To learn more about the filtering and sorting conditions: See the Help page about the Filtering and sorting window.
To clear the filter and return to the full list: At the top of the translation memory editor tab, click the Show All icon.
When you're reviewing a translation memory, and you need to return to some of the rows later, you can flag them.
To flag a row: Point at it with the mouse, and, on the right, click the Flag icon.
Or: Select the row. On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Flag.
Or: Click the row or just go to it with the arrow keys. Press Ctrl+M.
To filter the rows, then flag every row on the filtered list:
- First, in the boxes above the source or the target column, type the words to filter for.
Or: Use the Filtering and sorting window to set more detailed conditions.
- On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Flag All.
To remove the flags from all rows on the list: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Clear flags.
If the list is filtered: memoQ clears the flags from the filtered rows only. If other rows are flagged, too, they stay that way.
Once you flagged the rows you want to return to, you can jump to them, or you can view them all at once:
- To jump to flagged rows: Click a row, then press Ctrl+G. Or, on the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Jump to Next Flagged.
- To filter the list for all the flagged rows: At the top of the translation memory editor tab, click the Show only flagged icon.
When you click a row, its descriptive details appear on the right. These are the following:
- Created by: Name of the user who created the entry.
- Created at: Date and time when the entry was created.
- Modified by: Name of the user who modified the entry the last time.
- Modified at: Date and time when the entry was last modified.
- Last modified role: The role of the user (Translator, Reviewer 1, Reviewer 2) who created or modified the entry. Some translation memories don't save this information. You can set this up when you create the translation memory.
- Document: Name of the document this entry comes from. Some translation memories don't save this information. You can set this up when you create the translation memory.
- Corrected: Shows Yes if the source text was changed in the translation editor before the entry was saved to the translation memory.
- Aligned: Shows Yes if the entry comes from alignment.
Up to this point, you can't edit the fields.
- Subject: Subject field information. Normally, this is the subject field of the project where the entry was saved from. You can edit it.
- Domain: Domain information (rarely used). Normally, this is the domain of the project where the entry was saved from. You can edit it.
- Project: Name of client-side project. Normally, this is the client-side Project information of the memoQ project where the entry was saved from. You can edit it.
- Client: Normally, this is the name of the client that the memoQ project is being done for. You can edit it.
If you change one of these four fields, memoQ saves them for the selected rows only.
Don't forget to save: After you edit these fields, save the changes. On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Save changes. Or, press Ctrl+S.
- Previous segment: Contents of the previous segment from the original document. If the translation memory doesn't store context, or the source material isn't running text, this field is empty.
- Next segment: Contents of the next segment from the original document. If the translation memory doesn't store context, or the source material isn't running text, this field is empty.
In running text, memoQ uses the above two fields from the entry to find context (101%) matches.
- Context ID: If the source material is structured (not running text), memoQ saves context identifiers instead of the previous and the next segment. This is the context identifier memoQ uses to find context (101%) matches.
When you are editing a translation memory, you can also edit the values of custom fields for each translation unit. You can set values for the custom fields that are available in the the translation memory. If the translation memory was created without custom fields, this section will be empty.
To add new custom fields to the translation memory: At the bottom right, click Add custom field. The Custom field properties window appears. Choose a name and a type for the field, and if you chose Pick list for the type, list the potential values. (See the Help page for the Custom field properties window.) Click OK. The new custom field appears in the list.
- To add a value for a custom field: Click the custom field. Type or choose a value for the field. Click Add.
- To remove a value: Click the custom field. Delete the text or the value.
Custom fields affect translation memory filters: TM settings may include filters (soft and strict) that work with custom fields. When you change custom fields for a row, the match rates for that row may change. In the worst case, you may lose matches for this row.
You can clean the translation memory from duplicate entries.
You may end up with a lot of duplicates if you do one of the following:
- Confirm a lot of identical translations to it, using different contexts.
- Use a translation memory that allows several translations for the same source segment and the same context.
- Use a translation memory without context information.
- Import TMX files into the translation memory with many identical source segments.
- Confirm a lot of non-textual segments (all-number segments, or segments made up from dashes etc.).
To start cleaning the duplicates: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Remove Duplicates.
The Filter for duplicates window appears. In this window, you can choose what counts as a duplicate (for example, identical source segments); if the context, lower- or uppercase, punctuation and spaces, or the tags make a difference; and what should happen to duplicates when they are found.
To learn more: See the topic about the Filter for duplicates window.
After you set up all this, click OK. The translation memory editor displays the groups of duplicate translation units. This list is slightly different from the plain list of translation units.
In each group of translation units, there is one master unit and one or more merge units. Information from the merge units can be merged into the master unit (resolving conflicts if there are any). Alternatively, the merge units can be deleted - or be left as they were; in that case, those duplicates will remain in the translation memory. memoQ can do some of this automatically; you can set up what should happen in the Filter for duplicates window.
You can simply click Merge Selection command to merge each group into a single entry (100 groups into 100 entries, for example), or you can mark each group for a different action (keep a master entry, delete a superfluous entry, merge the entries, or do nothing), and then click Merge Selection to perform the selected action for group of duplicates. Then the action can be different for each group.
When you work on the duplicate groups, you work in two steps. Use the icons in the Duplicates section of the Translation memory editor ribbon.
- Mark a merge unit - or all the selected merge unit - for an action. Normally, memoQ marks all the merge units for 'merge'. You need to mark a unit only if you need a different action for that unit. You can mark a merge unit for one of the following:
- Mark As Master [Ctrl+Space]: The selected merge unit becomes master within its group - instead of the master unit that memoQ picked at first.
- Mark For Merge [Ctrl+Alt+Space]: Contents of the merge unit will be copied into the master unit, and then the merge unit will be deleted.
- Mark For Deletion [Ctrl+D]: memoQ will delete the merge unit. Its contents will be lost without adding them to the master unit first.
- Mark To Skip [Ctrl+Shift+Space]: memoQ will keep the merge unit, so the duplicate units remain in the translation memory.
- After marking all the merge units for an action, run all the actions that were marked. You have two choices:
- Merge Current [Ctrl+Enter]: Run the actions for the selected duplicate group.
- Merge Selection [Ctrl+Shift+Enter]: Run the actions for all the duplicate groups.
When you finish, and want to return to the 'normal' list of translation units: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Back to Editor.
Don't forget to save: After you remove or merge the duplicates, save the changes. On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Save changes. Or, press Ctrl+S.
To import new translation units into the translation memory from a TMX or a CSV file: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Import. Find and choose the file to import. Then the Translation memory CSV import settings or the Translation memory TMX import settings window appears.
To learn more about the settings: See the Help topics on each of these windows (click the name of the window above).
Caution, you may get duplicates: After an import, it's recommended to run Remove Duplicates to find and remove the duplicates.
To export translation units to a file: On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Export.
You can export the translation memory to a TMX (Translation Memory eXchange) file.
Choose a folder and the name for the TMX file. Click Save.
To export just some of the translation units:
- On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Filter. The Filtering and sorting window appears.
- Set up the conditions for the units you want to see, and click OK.
- On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Export. memoQ warns you that only the filtered units will be exported, not the entire translation memory.
- Click No. A Save As window appears.
- Choose a folder and a name for the TMX file. Click Save.
When you finish
Don't forget to save: After you make changes, save them. On the Translation memory editor ribbon, click Save changes. Or, press Ctrl+S.
To close the translation memory editor: Click the button on the tab at the top. Or, press Ctrl+F4.
To switch to a document tab or to Project home, leaving the translation memory editor open: Click any other tab. Or, press Ctrl+Tab several times until you get where you want.