Hidden Text Is Hidden Even in Studio

I taught two Trados Studio workshops in Dallas this past weekend, and while explaining how to use the hidden rows and columns feature in Excel to hide text from translation in Studio (and in Trados 2007), I started thinking that it would be great if this also worked with Word files. Of course, Word doesn’t have the Hide/Unhide feature but you can define text as hidden using the Font Effects settings. While flying back to San Francisco, I tried this out and to my great surprise, it worked! I also searched the Studio online help and did not find this mentioned anywhere.

Most Trados users probably know that hiding columns or rows in Excel is a handy way to hide those parts from translation. This is the default setting in Studio (and Trados 2007), but can be changed via file type settings (Tools > Options > File Types). This works similarly in Word, except that there’s no option to change this behavior; whatever text is defined as hidden in Word will not be presented for translation when the file is opened for translation. So, you can hide any non-translatable sections, such as columns in Word tables, and translate the file in Studio without being bothered by the sections that don’t need to be translated. When the translation is finished, open the file in Word and change the hidden text back to visible.

If you want to see the hidden text during translation, switch to the “All content” view in the Display Filter Toolbar, and all the hidden text will be displayed as tags. You can see the tag content if you turn the Full Tag Text view on (click Full Tag Text button in the Translation and Review Toolbar).

I find this method much easier than using the non-translatable styles like tw4winExternal.

Where is SP3?

I don’t really know but I do know that it’s not in my Trados account’s download area, yet. However, I also know that the Trados Knowledge Base already has instructions on how to install Service Pack 3 (SP3) and what some of the enhancements are. And the SDL ad in the latest Translorial says “Coming to You September 2010!”.

Anyhow, you can read more about the new features and improvements here but I wanted to mention the following few because they (or the lack of them) have been bothering me from early on:

• You can now define update settings for multiple translation memories, even if their setup does not match in terms of the custom fields used.
• The Editor display settings for word counts, in the status bar, are no longer reset when the application is closed.
• The file types for MS Office 2007-2010 have been enhanced significantly. The biggest result is that the documents now open much faster than in previous releases.
• The QA Checker now considers more space variants (such as non-breaking space) when running punctuation checks and complex checks for numbers.
• Non-standard decimal separators no longer create issues with auto-propagation. (Not sure if this helps with the problems I have had but let’s hope so.)

Trados Studio Workshops in California

I will be teaching the following three Trados Studio workshops in California later this year in addition to the ones in Texas. Let me know if you need any additional info about the workshops.

October 10, 2010: A Hands-on Trados Studio Workshop in Santa Monica, organized by the California Federation of Interpreters (CFI). This workshop is part of the annual CFI Conference but you need to reserve a spot for the workshop when registering for the conference. For details, visit the CFI website.

November 13, 2010: Trados Studio 2009 Workshop for Beginners in San Francisco, organized by NCTA.

December 4, 2010: Trados Studio 2009 Workshop for Intermediate Users in San Francisco, organized by NCTA.