Trados' File Type Definition misses snippets and conditions?

[techwriterkai]

Hi, our translator uses Trados + the File Type Definition (FTD) for MadCap Flare to translate our Flare topics. She finds that even with the FTD installed, Trados omits .flsnp snippet files. Trados also chops up sentences which contain Flare conditions into chunks before and after the conditions which renders them untranslatable. Has anyone heard of this kind of problem and found a solution to it?

P.S. I know that the use of intra-sentence conditions can be debated. In our particular case, we use them to condition window names which change according to software product variant, so the chunks before and after the conditions still give you a translatable whole. In a fictitious example:

<p>To change the configuration, open the
<MadCap:conditionalText MadCap:conditions="Variant.LightVersion">
<span class="WindowName">Easy Setup</span>
</MadCap:conditionalText>
<MadCap:conditionalText MadCap:conditions="Variant.Pro"
<span class="WindowName">Configuration</span>
</MadCap:conditionalText>
window and change all applicable settings.</p>

[ChoccieMuffin]

This may not help you much, but could you use variables rather than snippets and conditions in this instance?

If you don't get any help on this forum, you could perhaps take a look at a Trados forum and see if Trados users have found a solution. Good luck.

[techwriterkai]

Thanks, ChoccieMuffin, good advice about the Trados forums - there's probably more users over there who are bound to have seen this problem.

I've asked my translator, and variables (which we also use) also break up sentences, so we wouldn't be any better off.

Thanks again. Cheers, Kai.

[ChoccieMuffin]

From my days as localisation project manager (a good while back) I have a vague recollection that you can edit a setting in Trados to say where segments break, so you can set what would typically cause a break to be ignored in certain circumstances (e.g., when a German text includes "b.z.w." followed by a space, that shouldn't cause a segment break.) You might want to take a look to see if you can add Flare tags to that ignore list.

This might be just a figment of my imagination so don't break your neck looking for it, but it's ringing a teeny tiny bell so there might be an element of truth in it. (Does that kind of thing live in a DTD?)

[techwriterkai]

Brilliant, ChoccieMuffin! We'll investigate. We're grateful for every lead at this point, and it sounds quite plausible.

Many thanks! Cheers, Kai.

[rob hollinger]

Kai,
Use Lingo and send the translators the XLIF files to be translated.
This should remove these issues and make sure your not paying to translate more words than you should.

Not trying to all Sales on you, but Lingo breaks these all up into segments to avoid these situations.

[Uwe]

Kai,
I have to agree with Rob here. I am actually using Lingo exactly for this purpose. The problem with the default file type definition is the fact that the definition requires customization, since almost no-one uses the default. In my case I get documentation from writers around the World and templates are different. As for ChoccieMuffins suggestion, it is a good one, but be aware that if you change the stop rules, this will apply to the whole translation memory and that can cause problems for other projects. If you look in the MadCap Lingo forum I aposted a workflow a while back using Lingo.

Here is the link to the workflow viewtopic.php?f=40&t=20781

HTH

Uwe

[ChoccieMuffin]

I defer to the experts who use Lingo and Trados together, I was just basing my suggestion on experiences from the past. So definitely take a look at Lingo.