Translation Tool

Access

Use this routine to translate a STORIS "domain" (for example, STORIS screen text or message text) from English to another language.  Note that the number of languages to which you can translate is restricted by the extra-English characters required by each language and the ability of your computer system to support them.  In addition, STORIS supports only a limited number of ASCII characters.

Translating from English to another language is a three-step process:

1. Use the Translation Tool to export English data (in the form of a STORIS domain) to a .TXT file.

2. Translate from English to another language using the program of your choice.  This topic provides instructions for translating within an Excel® spreadsheet. You must then return the translated text back to a .TXT file before importing it back into STORIS.

3. Use the Translation Tool to import the .TXT file with the translated text back into STORIS.

Operation

Translate

Text Exceeding Maximum Width

Language   Specify the translation language. If you click on the Arrow, a list of available languages appears from which you can choose.  This field activates only after you respond to the Translate prompt.

Spreadsheet

FileFor the specified translation domain, enter the name of the file you want to generate or retrieve. For exports, STORIS generates a .TXT file.  For imports, the file must be a .TXT file.

PathThe directory location of the selected file displays.

Selection Filters

ModulesSpecify one or more STORIS modules whose data you want to include in the import or export. If you click on the Arrow, a list of modules appears from which you can choose. If you click on the Action button, the Multiple Module Window appears, from which you can choose one or more modules. This field is active only if you select a translation domain of Help, Menus, Reports, or Screens.

Data Files

Translation TypesSpecify one or more translation types whose data you want to include in the import or export. If you click on the Arrow, a list of types appears from which you can choose. If you click on the Search button, the Multiple Translation Type Search Window appears, from which you can choose one or more types.  This field is active only if you select a translation domain of DDT, Dictionaries, DTQ, Reports, or Screens.

Only Untranslated TextTo generate only text that has not yet been translated, check the box. Otherwise, the program generates all text for translation.

Importing and Exporting Data

The Translation Tool imports and exports files in a “tab-separated" format and with a .TXT suffix (for example, MyExport.txt).  

To apply your translations, you can convert the spreadsheet to another format, for example, a third-party translation utility.  STORIS recommends you convert the .TXT export file to an Excel® spreadsheet. Spreadsheet columns help you organize the various data points in your export file.  If you convert the .TXT file to another format, you must convert it back to a tab-delimited format (the same format as the original export file) with a “.txt” extension before importing back into STORIS.  Excel makes this process easy.

Translating Text Within Excel®

To use Excel to translate your export file, locate the .TXT file on your disc.  Refer to the Path field in the Translation for the path to the file.  Right-click on the filename, select Open With, and choose Excel. If Excel is not on the list, use the Choose Program option to find it.

Once you have the export file open in Excel, you probably want to format the spreadsheet to make it easier to read. Before you format the file, note the following:

• You must select a standard font that supports special characters.

• Do not change any of the column headers. When importing translations, the system uses the generated column headers to verify the integrity and version of the spreadsheet.  The first row of the spreadsheet must contain the column headers.

• Do not delete any of the generated columns.  You can add your own columns, but you must place them outside of the generated columns.  That is, do not insert any columns amongst the generated columns.

• One or more special Note rows (prefixed with <NOTE>) are included at the start of the spreadsheet, below the column headers, for informational and instructional purposes. The program ignores these rows when importing translations and you can delete them from the spreadsheet. You can also add your own Note rows anywhere in the spreadsheet except the first row, which must contain the column headers.

• You can sort the spreadsheet anyway you like, and you can delete any rows except the column headers.

STORIS strongly suggests you not exceed maximum widths for ANY fields as results can be unpredictable. The Exception Report, which generates at the conclusion of the import process (and the export process as well if any errors are found), lists any data truncated or rejected during import.

For more information, view the translation spreadsheet samples.

Formatting Tips

1. Adjust column widths to suit your preference.

2. Format the entire spreadsheet for “Wrap text” (wrapping text is recommended when translating large blocks of text). Select the entire spreadsheet (that is, click the top-left corner where the row and column labels intersect), right-click in the spreadsheet and select Format Cells. Set the following options in the Numbers and Alignment tabs, and then click OK.

Important! Do NOT format your spreadsheet as Text (that is, via the Number tab).  Otherwise, problems may occur when you import the spreadsheet.  For example, the Control ID “$1” converts incorrectly to “1”.

3. Adjust applicable rows and columns to not “Wrap text” (that is, after selecting the applicable rows and columns, right-click and select Format Cells and then uncheck the Wrap text option).  We recommend you only leave the English and translated text columns with text wrapping. To accomplish this, first select the top column header and <NOTES> rows (see below), then select all columns except the last two columns (English and translated text columns).

4. If preferred, you can reformat the Max column so that “soft” maximum limits are displayed with parenthesis instead of a negative sign, such as (160) instead of -160. To do so, select the Max column, right-click and select Format Cells. Set the following options in the Number tab (Number, Decimal Places, and Negative Number), and then click OK.

Special Characters

In some cases, special characters are used for special purposes within text for translation. The special Note rows in the spreadsheet also indicate which special characters are applicable for the selected the Translation Domain.

• ^ up caret – Up carets are used to represent line breaks in selected translation types (for example, column headings and grid headings) and can only be used for applicable translations. Your translated version may not need to have the same number of lines as the corresponding English version.

For example, Column^Heading displays as:

Column

Heading

• ~ tilde – Tildes are used within selected translation type (for example, Messages) as placeholders for text insertions and can only be used for applicable translations.

For example, the message “Cannot locate '~' in the ~ file.” displays as:   

Cannot locate 'ABC123' in the PRODUCT file.

The grammar of your translated version must accommodate the same number and sequence of text insertions as the English version.