Bilingual export wizard

The Bilingual export wizard helps you send bilingual documents to another system.

It supports four formats you can choose from: plain XLIFF, memoQ XLIFF, Trados-compatible bilingual Word, or table RTF. This topic explains each of them and the options you can use to save your documents.

How to get here

  1. Open a project.

  2. In Project home, choose Translations .

  3. In the Documents or Views tab, select one or more documents or views.

  4. On the Documents ribbon, click the arrow under the Export  button, and choose Export Bilingual.

    The Bilingual export wizard window opens:

    Bilingual export wizard window showing export options for memoQ xliff (plain xliff for other tools), Trados doc/rtf, or table rtf.

What can you do?

XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format) is a standard bilingual document format that almost every other translation tool can open and save. If you want to export standard XLIFF documents and send them to a different translation tool:

  1. Click the memoQ XLIFF radio button.
  2. To export an XLIFF file without the parts used only by memoQ, click the Plain XLIFF for other tools link. This clears all check boxes below the radio button. The exported file won't be zipped and will have the .mqxliff extension.
  3. To confirm: Click the Export button.

memoQ's basic bilingual document format is XLIFF, too, but it contains parts that make sense for memoQ only. To export a bilingual memoQ document:

  1. Click the memoQ XLIFF radio button.

  2. Make sure that all check boxes are checked:

    1. Include skeleton and preview saves data needed for exporting and previewing the translated document.
    2. Include major version history saves current and previous versions of the document.
    3. Save a compressed file saves your documents as a zipped .mqxlz file.
  3. To confirm: Click the Export button.

If you check any of the upper two check boxes, memoQ automatically saves your document as a zipped file.

If you need to send the exported file to someone who doesn't have a translation tool, you can use the table RTF format. memoQ exports your bilingual document in a table using a Rich Text Format (RTF). Your customer can then edit it in Word and send the edited file back to you. Import this file into the same project, and memoQ updates the document in the project for you.

To export a table RTF file:

  1. Click the Table RTF radio button.

    To open your document in Word just after it is saved, check the Open exported bilingual file in Word check box.

  2. Click Next. The second page of the wizard opens.

  3. Adjust the layout, format and miscellaneous settings as needed, then click Export.

Bilingual export wizard showing layout, format, and miscellaneous options to choose from when adjusting your .rtf file.

  • Export comments: Check this to create an extra column in the table. It will contain the comments from the document. This option is checked by default.

  • Export segment status: Check this to add an extra column that shows the segment status (both the color and the match rate). This option is checked by default.

  • Two target columns in table: Check this to export the target column twice. Usually, both target columns contain the translation. In such a case, the reviewer should leave the first target column and modify only the second one.

    If you want to add an empty second target column, check the Leave second target column empty check box. memoQ adds another column named Comments to your file.

    RTF table exported and opened in Word. At the top of the table are the file's name and information not to change segment ID or source text. Below there are 6 columns: ID, source language (English), target language (Hungarian), a second column with the target language (Hungarian), Comments, and Status.

  • Format tags with the "mqInternal" style: In the exported file, the characters in formatting tags will be formatted with the mqInternal style. For memoQ, importing or updating documents with this style is easier, so make sure this check box stays checked.
  • Export the full text of inline tags: memoQ exports every attribute in inline tags. Don't use this option, unless you absolutely need to. This makes the document extremely difficult to read in Word.

  • Export all selected documents in a single RTF file: Check this check box to export several documents, and save them in a single RTF file. Exported table has multiple headers, so that you can identify each memoQ document.

    RTF table exported and opened in Word. At the top of the table is the header with the file's name and information to not to change the segment ID or source text. Below are 5 columns: ID, source language (English), target language (Hungarian), Comments, and Status. Under the first header, there's a second header and 5 columns for the second document exported in this file.

  • Include locked segments in export: Check this check box if you don't want to include locked segments in your RTF file. The reviewer won't be able to accidentally change the text that should not be changed, but it's difficult to review text if you can't see the whole of it. memoQ exports locked segments by default.

Be careful when editing your document: The RTF file contains identifiers (long numbers) for each document and segment. The document ID appears below the document title. The segment IDs appear next to the segment numbers in a font size of 1 point (unreadable). These identifiers must not be changed or deleted in Word because memoQ won't be able to update the project from the RTF file without them.

If tracking changes is turned on: Tracked changes in the document are exported to the RTF file as proper tracked changes (both from target and source text). They will appear in Microsoft Word as tracked changes. This works for every source document format, even if the final export format can't handle tracked changes.tracked-changes-in-word

This type of bilingual document is a Word file that contains the source segments and their translations. The source text is hidden, and the document uses special styles, hidden text, and text protection. Such files are created by SDL Trados Translator's Workbench (2007 or earlier) but are no longer used in SDL Trados Studio (2009 and higher). However, in many organizations, this type of Word document is still a standard way of transferring bilingual documents.

memoQ can save all the formatting with these files - if the source document was already a Trados-compatible bilingual Word file and was previously run through Trados. From other documents, memoQ saves a bilingual Word document with no formatting but all the markup of a Trados-compatible document.

Don't use this format for reviewing: If you need a document that will be reviewed in Word, export a table RTF file instead.

To export a Trados-compatible Word document:

  1. Click the Trados DOC/RTF radio button.

  2. Adjust your export file using the check boxes below:

    • Export context matches as 100%: SDL Trados 2007 and earlier versions do not have context matches (101% matches). Make sure this check box is checked. The match rate in the exported document will be 100% in segments that had a context match in the memoQ document.

    • Export markup for empty translations: Check this to export hidden tags for segments that were not translated. If you clear this check box, memoQ exports untranslated source segments without Trados-style Word markup.

    • Simple formatting: Check this to export the document without the original formatting. This field will be grayed out if the source document wasn't already a Trados-compatible Word file.

    Be careful with the document: In Word, don't touch hidden content and tags. If you do, Trados Translator's Workbench won't be able to work with the document.

  3. To confirm: Click the Export button.

Don't use this format at all unless you need to: In general, don't save Trados-compatible documents unless you need to send them to Trados Translator's Workbench.

If your project has multiple target languages, and the language selector in the Translations pane of the Project home (or the memoQ online project window) is set to All languages: The Bilingual export wizard shows one more window.

Project manager edition only: You can't have multiple target languages in your project in memoQ project manager.

  1. Set the options for the bilingual export the usual way.

  2. Click Next. Another wizard window appears:

    Bilingual export wizard showing two radio buttons for exporting files with multiple languages: append language code to file name, and create subfolders for each language. Back, Export, Cancel and Help buttons are at the bottom of the table.

    memoQ exports each document in a separate file for each target language.

    • To export every file to the same folder: Click Append language code to file name. memoQ adds a language code to the name of each exported file. Choose this if you are exporting one document only.

    • To export each document to the folder of its target language: Click Create subfolders for each language. Choose this if you are exporting several documents.

      This wizard page does not appear if you select a target language in the language selector of the Project home or memoQ online project window.

  3. To confirm: Click the Export button.

When you finish

If you are exporting one document: A Save As window appears where you can point to a folder and name the file.

If you are exporting several documents: A Select Folder window appears where you can point to a folder. Every document will have the same name as in memoQ.

memoQ remembers your choices: Next time you open the Bilingual export wizard, you will see the settings you used the last time.

To close the wizard without exporting: Click Cancel.

On the second wizard page, click Back to return to the first page and select the bilingual document format again.

To update your memoQ project later: When you receive an edited bilingual document, simply open your project, and import the document. memoQ will recognize that it's a bilingual document, and will find the document that needs to be updated thanks to the identifiers.