Configuring the bilingual Excel settings

Configure the settings for extracting content from Microsoft Excel files where the source and target text is organized into the columns of a spreadsheet.

These settings specify how SDL Trados Studio extracts the content of source and target columns and how it displays it for translation in the Editor view. If your spreadsheet includes additional columns with reference information, you can also extract their content as comments or as document structure information. When you save and generate the target translation, Studio places the translated content inside the target Translation column of your Excel spreadsheet.

Parent topic: Bilingual Excel file type

Configuring the settings of the Bilingual Excel files

To configure what Studio extracts for translation from bilingual Excel files:

Columns section

  1. Click Project Settings > File Types > Bilingual Excel > Common to change the settings for current projects.
  2. Specify which column in the Excel file contains the source text, and which column contains the target text. Use the Excel style for indicating the Source column and the Translation column , for example: A, D, AA etc.
  3. In the Length limitation column, enter the name of the column which specifies the maximum number of characters that Studio can admit for translating the strings in the source column. You can check the length limitation set for each string by clicking inside the Document Structure column next to each segment:. If you exceed this limit and you confirm the segment, the QA Checker warns you that your translated segment contains a length restriction error.
  4. By default, Studio respects the formatting used in the target column, including cell background and text colors. If you want to transfer the style from the source column instead, disable the Preserve Target Style checkbox.

Exclude section

  1. Usually, you would not want to translate the name of the columns. However, if you need to extract the column heading for translation, disable the First line is column heading option.
  2. If your translation column already contains some text, but you do not want to extract this for translation, enable the Translation column content option.

Existing Translations section

  1. If your translation column already contains translations for some of the source strings, enable the Confirm existing translations option. This imports the translations into Studio and tags them with the Confirmed status. Unless you choose to lock these segments, you can still make changes to Confirmed segments when you open the file for translation in the Editor view.
  2. Enable the Lock existing translations option if you want Studio to automatically lock the strings it finds in the Translation column. Locked segments cannot be edited in the Editor view.

Context Information section

  1. Click Add in the Context Information section and specify the column that contains reference information such as the location of the strings in the source document or application. For example: header, table cell, button, list item, etc. This context information is displayed in the Editor view when you click on the code of the segment inside the Document Structure column. Studio uses the heading of the Excel context column to indicate the string Location in the Document structure information dialog box. This means that the First line is column heading option needs to be active so that Studio can read the column heading before adding context information for your translation strings.

Comment Information section

  1. Click Add in the Comment Information section and specify the column that contains instructions for translating the source strings. For example, "Download is the name of the button. Translate this as a verb". Studio displays the content of the Comment Information column in the Comments window of the Editor view.
  2. Click OK to close the Project Settings dialog box. Close and reopen the active project file for your changes to take effect. If you made changes in the Options dialog box, Studio will use your changes as the default setting for all future project files that can be opened with the Bilingual Excel file type.
Activating the bilingual Excel processor
Configuring the bilingual Excel settings
Working with Multilingual Excel Files