Need help importing xliff files from Trados Studio

[Bob Shairulla]

Greetings all, 

Using RH 2022.2.22.  I sent some xlf files to my translation team.  They ran the files through Trados Studio and returned a test file.  I saved the test file in a separate folder (not the RH project or the child language project). I copied the mapper file into the folder.  When i try to import the xliff file into RH, it says 1 file will be imported but it doesnt show any files in the window.  If I click OK to proceed, I get a red box with the msg: Application Error - the application has run into an error. pls save your work and restart Robohelp.  

Here is the filename of the file that was returned from translation:  contents_Settings_Change_password_for_non-admin_users_htm.xlf_test-bilingual.sdlxliff

Is this the correct file extension? I expected it to be .xlf ??

Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks,

Bob

[Peter Grainge]

@Bob Shairulla Sorry but the regular forum supporters are not users of the translation feature. 

My first suggestion would be to talk to the translation team in the hope they can work something out with you. An external agency might have worked with RoboHelp users before but if your team is internal, maybe not.

After that I can only suggest trying Adobe Support. See https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/enterprise-support.other.html#robohelp for your Adobe Support options. The email link tcssup@adobe.com is recommended as it reaches a team dedicated to Technical Communication Suite products including RoboHelp. 

Come back here if you don't get a reply within three or four days.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Bob Shairulla]

hi Peter, 

Is there another forum for users of the translation functions in RH?  I did a search and there are several translation related questions in this forum, some of which you replied to. 

I did try sending a message to tcssup@adobe.com last Wed 21 June but have not received any reply. 

[Peter Grainge]

One forum only for all RoboHelp issues.

I'll see if I can alert someone in Adobe to follow up your email.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Did you see this thread - https://community.adobe.com/t5/robohelp-discussions/import-xliff-invalid-folder/td-p/11783487 ?

[Bob Shairulla]

Thanks Jeff.  I did see that thread.  I wasn't able to glean the required file format when importing xliff files back into RH.  I will keep looking on the web. I think something is not right with files Im getting abck from Translation, but I can't tell them what files to produce until I find out myself.  🙂 

[Sudhanshu Monga]

Hi,
From your post I can understand that you have generated XLIFF files from RH app itself and then sent it over to translation o the vendor that uses SDL trados studio for translation of XLIFF files. 
The file extension seems to be changed when the XLIFF files were modified in SDL trados studio. Does reverting the extension to .xlf e.g. contents_Settings_Change_password_for_non-admin_users_htm.xlf_test-bilingual.sdlxliff changed to
contents_Settings_Change_password_for_non-admin_users_htm.xlf fix the issue for you?

If possible, can you share one sample XLIFF file that gets generated from RH, and then the same XLIFF file that gets modified in the SDL trardos studio? 

Thanks!

[Bob Shairulla]

@Sudhanshu Monga,  Thanks for your reply.  I was able to get the Translation team to save their files as xlf before sending them back to me.  And RH imported them successfully in 2 seconds.  However, when I open the child project (French Canada), the English content has disappeared and the French content is there but only in bits and pieces.  I believe the xlf files contain all the French content - I can open the files using Notepad and I see both the English text and the translated french text.  But somehow RH is not able to parse the xml correctly.   I am attaching 3 files:

1. Image of the English topic in RH.

2. Image of the French topic in RH. 

3. the xlf file. [This forum does not support .xlf so I added .xml at the end of the file name. pls revert when looking at the file.  The forum removed the file so unforunately it is not attached. ]

AFter I import the translated xliff files in the parent project, is there anything else that I need to do to make this work?  

thanks, 

Bob Shairulla

[Bob Shairulla]

@Sudhanshu Monga I modified the xlf files by wrapping them in xml tags so that this forum will allow me to upload them.  Two files attached.

1. xlf file generated by RH for the Communications topic. 

2. corresponding xlf file from Translation team for the Communications topic, generated by Trados Studio.  

Pls let me know if you have any suggestions as to why RH is not parsing the xlf correctly aftering importing it successfully.  

thanks,

Bob

[Sudhanshu Monga]

Hi Bob,
The xlf file generated by RH is pre-segmented, whereas when it comes out of trados, it loses the segmentation. In RH upon import we expect a segmented xlf file, therefore you experience content loss.
This is how a segmented translated xliff file should look like:

<trans-unit id= "1">
<source>First sentence.Second sentence.</source>
<seg-source>
<mrk mtype="seg" mid="1">First sentence.</mrk>
<mrk mtype="seg" mid="2">Second sentence.</mrk>
</seg-source>
<target>
<mrk mtype="seg" mid="1">Translated first sentence.</mrk>
<mrk mtype="seg" mid="2">Translated second sentence.</mrk>
</target>
</trans-unit> 

 Please let your vendor know that you need a segmented output.
Let me know if that resolves the issue.

[Bob Shairulla]

hi Sudhanshu, 

Thanks for pointing out that the translated files were not segmented.  The translation team enabled segmentation in Trados, and sent me a new test file for the Receipt topic. RH got stuck during the import and I had to click Dismiss.  I opened the translated file in Notepad and i see that the contents are indeed segmented.  here is some of the code produced by Trados: 

<group id="/html[1]/head[1]" resname="Head">
<trans-unit id="/html[1]/head[1]/title[1]" resname="Title">
<source xml:lang="en"> Receipt settings </source>
<seg-source>
<mrk mid="1" mtype="seg">Receipt settings</mrk>
</seg-source>
<target state="translated">
<mrk mid="1" mtype="seg">Paramètres de reçu</mrk>
</target>
</trans-unit>
</group>

However, RH did not replace the EN text with French text for most of the topic.  It missed H1 text and Normal text. 

Could you have a look at the attached files:  the xlf file from RH and the xlf file from Trados.  I am not sure why RH is unable to successfully import the file from Trados.  (FYI, I wrapped the xliff code in XML to allow me to upload the files to this forum since it does not permit XLF files - can this rule be changed? ) 

Thanks, 

Bob Shairulla

[Sudhanshu Monga]

Hi Bob,

As a workaround what you can do is open your xliff files that have been translated and remove all the attributes "rh:data-trailing-spaces" and "rh:data-leading-spaces"

along with their values and then try importing those files.

[Bob Shairulla]

hi Sudhanshu, 

Thank you for your advice.  I removed the "trailing spaces" attribute.  There were no instances of "leading spaces" attributes.  RH was able to import the file successfully.  The French content is all there which I am happy to see.  It is a vast improvement over the previous results.  The only issue now is that some spaces are missing. For example, bold text next to regular text (not everywhere but in some spots) and some sentences have no space after the period (full stop).  Is there any other way to get RH to parse the files  without removing the atritube for spaces?  The correct spacing is there in the HTML files when I generate xliff.  Is there a way to tell RH to simply preserve existing spaces in xliff? 

Thanks,

Bob Shairulla

[Pankhuri Saxena]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the update. The spacing issue requires code changes, there is no quick fix for this issue. We will be fixing it in our next release ie. RH 2022 Update 4.

Thanks and Regards, 

Pankhuri Saxena

[Bob Shairulla]

Hello Pankuri, 

Thanks for replying.  When do anticipate the release of update 4? 

Bob

[Pankhuri S]

Hi Bob, 

RH Update 4 is scheduled around early next year. 

Thanks and Regards,

Pankhuri Saxena