/
How to import a translation memory (TM) into XTM Cloud

How to import a translation memory (TM) into XTM Cloud

Introduction

Translation memories can be imported into XTM Cloud, using a couple of file formats:

  • TMX.

  • XLS.

  • XLSX.

  • bilingual XLIFF file (one XLIFF file per language pair).

Instructions

  1. First, you need to have a TM Expert role in order to be able to import XTM translation memory. To activate the role, go to Users → User list → (select a user) → General → General info, and apply the TM Expert role in the Roles section.

  1. Next, in the Access rights tab, and then in the Translation memory section of the user’s settings, enable the Import option.

  1. Once you have a user with the relevant rights, go to TM → TM import.

  1. Proceed as follows:

  • Select a Customer to import the translation memory to.

  • Define an Import project name for your imported TM.

  • Specify the required Source and Target language for the TM.

  • Use the Import or set approved/not approved status option to select the presence and type of status which the imported TM shall adopt.

    • Set as approved → All the segments are approved, regardless of what status they have in the file.

    • Set as not approved → All the segments are not approved, regardless of what status they have in the file.

    • Import statuses and set as approved where missing → All of the segments' statuses are imported, and if any of them is missing the status, then it is imported with the “approved” status.

    • Import status and set as not approved where missing → All of the segments' statuses are imported, if any of them is missing the status, then it is imported with the “not approved” status.

  • Use the Whitespace in TM option to specify if white spaces are to be preserved and how.

    • Remove leading and trailing whitespace → This is the default setting, it removes all the whitespaces at the beginning and the end of a segment.

    • Remove redundant inner whitespace → It removes redundant whitespaces inside a segment.

    • Remove redundant inner, leading and trailing whitespace → Combination of option 1 and 2.

    • Keep all whitespace → All whitespaces are maintained, regardless of what their position is.

IMPORTANT!

Differences in processing whitespace characters might affect TM matching.

  • In the Import file section, select the appropriate file, which contains your TM. Keep in mind the restriction concerning valid file extensions: TMX, XLS, XLSX, single language XLIFF file.

For the best results, we highly recommend using TMX v 4b format.

  • Finally, click on the Import button.

Optionally:

Select the checkbox Import alt-trans elements from the XLIFF file if you want to import matching data that is stored in your XLIFF file.

Select the checkbox Import segments with the same source and target if you want to import translation units that have the same source and target texts.

IMPORTANT!

Importing a TM file with empty source or target records will cause:

  • a source segment with no matching text in the corresponding target cell,

  • a target segment with no matching text in the corresponding source segment,

  • empty source and corresponding empty target cells

not to be imported.

  1. Once the TM has been imported, its status will be Done. It will be listed in the Status column under the import form.

Good to know!

The TM import feature comes with a wide range of attributes that you can import from or export a TMX file, if required. For more details about this topic, we recommend that you read the following article: TMX attributes applicable during the TM import & export.