One by one, SDL continue to address obstacles to our upgrade decisions. Earlier today, one of their webinars tackled the critical topic of Compatibility in Translation Supply Chain. A recording will be available at www.sdl.com, but here is a quick summary for our convenience.
Alignment
This feature is not included in the recent release of SDL Trados Studio 2009. It is planned as an upcoming update, but until then SDL Trados WinAlign or SDL Align from the Trados 2007 Suite must be installed to perform alignment work.
Once the alignment performed in Trados 2007, export to Translator’s Workbench TXT, and import into a Workbench or SDL Maintain TM respectively.
That TM can then be upgraded to a Trados Studio 2009 TM (.sdltm). The export can also be imported directly into an sdltm but with implications regarding TM settings (see section below).
Translation Memories
Upgrading old TMs
Old TMs and bilingual files can be upgraded (File and Server-based supported).
TMX can be imported directly into sdltm, but if imported into tmw or mdb first, the TM settings can be imported into the sdltm.
3rd party TMX may not support this path fully, as they may contain settings specific to the CAT tool used to create them.
The Upgrade Translation Memories wizard in Trados Studio 2009 can batch process various TM formats for various language pairs simultaneously. A Custom option lets you rename the TM output files if required. Segmentation rules can also be imported. Translation Units can be filtered out by field (e.g. you can choose not to include TU’s tagged as “Not approved”).
You can also choose to output as many as TMs as you input, or merge same language pairs independently of their TM formats.
Publishing new TMs to Trados 2007 users
Export to TMX ensures vendors and colleagues who are using Trados 2007 can use your TMs. But this removes support for features like Context Match because information on previous segment, style…is only carried in sdltm.
Creating new TMs from old bilingual files
Importing ttx or itd directly into sdltm (batch) allows Context information to be added (this process however will not carry over any TM setting). It’s a case of either or.
Termbase compatibility
MultiTerm 2007 Termbase can be opened directly and automatically upgraded by MultiTerm Desktop 2009 (it’s one-time operation obviously).
Termbase from earlier versions of MultiTerm have to be converted into xml first, using SDL MultiTerm Convert, before they’re imported into a MultiTerm Desktop 2009 Termbase (.sdltb). Selecting
Catalog-Export allows to export using the Default Export Definition, to export to xml (which can be used by a user with MultiTermT2007)
Bilingual files
TTX and ITD can be opened directly. They will be converted to sdlxliff (e.g. filename.doc.ttx.sdlxliff)
At the end of project they can be saved back to TTX or ITD using
Save Target As. Use select
Original
TRADOStag Document to save as ttx (requires SDL Trados 2007 Suite).
Tag settings files
SDLX and Trados settings files can be upgraded. To do so go to
Tools-Options-File Types- select file type and click Copy to duplicate the default settings file in Trados Studio 2009. Browse to save location and move your new settings file up and down the list to set its priority against the original one. Import the legacy settings
into the new File type setting you created.
TMS and MTO
Compatibility with SDL TMS will be implemented, as soon as integration is available. The date is unconfirmed and SDL advise to stick to SDL Trados 2007 Suite TM, Bilingual and TermBase formats for the time being.
Compatibility with MultiTerm Online will only occur with the upcoming release of MultiTerm Server 2009.
Localization, Localisation 