Translating offline with TIPP
Introduction
There are two types of files that can be used for offline translation, in XTM Cloud: XLIFF and TIPP.
Translating offline with XLIFF format is described in more detail in the following article: Restrictions and good practices when dealing with XLIFF and multi-XLIFF files in offline translation. The second file format that is used for offline translation is TIPP.
The main difference between those two formats is that a TIPP ID applies globally for a project, which means that two or more different TIPP IDs cannot coexist, for the same project, in XTM Cloud. In contrast, XLIFF files can be generated independently so there can be multiple different IDs at once.
Enabling & working on a TIPP file
Guidelines
To use TIPP format in XTM Cloud, we first need to enable the feature in Configuration → Settings → System → Enable TIPP (administrative privileges required!).
Next, the Linguist who is assigned to a workflow step in a particular XTM Cloud project (or a Project manager or Administrator) can generate a TIPP file from a single XTM job.
As soon as the TIPP file is generated, it is ready to be downloaded. At that time, the entire XTM Cloud translation job is immediately blocked.
This locking mechanism indicates to other users that a Linguist has already generated a TIPP file and prevents them from:
changing files in the project, since someone may already be working on them offline;
generating a new TIPP file, which will make it impossible to upload a TIPP response file (task response package), since a newly generated TIPP request file (task request package) and a response TIPP file from an external CAT tool will have different IDs.
IMPORTANT! To ensure that the TIPP package always has a unique response ID, it must always originate from XTM Cloud. In other words, the package must first be generated in XTM Cloud. It can only undergo further modification in another CAT tool and then be reuploaded to XTM Cloud. Otherwise, the upload process is unsuccessful and this message is displayed: |
For Project managers/Administrators, a locked Cloud XTM job looks like this:
However, they can unlock it in the Files section, regardless of whether or not the Linguist who was working on it offline has already uploaded the TIPP response file back to the XTM Cloud job.
Use case
Consider the following situation:
The Linguist has generated a TIPP file, to process it outside of the XTM Cloud system. The related XTM Cloud job in the project has been locked. What can be done is as follows:
The Linguist can unlock the XTM Cloud job.
Result → The XTM Cloud job is unlocked but the Linguist cannot upload a TIPP response file and has to generate a new one, to be able to translate it offline.
The Linguist can upload a TIPP response file and unlock the XTM Cloud job in the project.
Result → The XTM Cloud job is unlocked and the TIPP file is uploaded, with the translation.
A user with administrative privileges can unlock the XTM Cloud job.
Result → The XTM Cloud job is unlocked but the Linguist cannot upload a TIPP response file and has to generate a new one, to be able to translate it offline.
The locking mechanism cannot be disabled.
How to see a unique TIPP package ID
After downloading the TIPP file, you can break it down into individual components. Change the extension of the file from .tipp to .zip.
Now extract its contents. You will see that the TIPP file consists of two files: manifest.xml and resources.zip.
resources.zip contains an XLF file.
manifest.xml is an XML document, which all TIPP files must have. It contains such vital information as the unique package ID, language combination and information on whether it is a task response package or a task request package.
As mentioned in the previous point, a unique package ID is placed in the manifest.xml file. Either open it in a browser or other suitable tool (for instance, Notepad++). The unique package ID is located within the
<UniquePackageID>...</UniquePackageID>element.
Good to know!
The use of TIPP is also related to the so-called XLIFF:doc statuses, which are used in offline translation when uploading TIPP packages to XTM Cloud from external CAT tools which support that format. Such statuses are then displayed in their corresponding segments in XTM Workbench. To learn more about this topic, read the following article: XLIFF:doc status.