Trados is probably the most popular software in the translation business. It was launched as a solution to the daily problems translators were dealing with across the globe. For the pros of the industry, Trados needs no introduction. Linguists are using the Trados software every day, and as with all programs and apps, there are many errors they can stumble upon while working. Down below are five of these errors and how to make sure you solve them before ruining your translation.
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Problematic files
One of the most common errors translators have to face while in Trados is the one about problematic files. This one can show up whenever they try to open a source file to start their translation, as well as when they try to generate the target file for wrapping up their work and deliver the translation to the client.
A solution to this problem is to open the source file with native software first. For example, try Microsoft Word on a .docx file before anything else, and make sure there are no obvious flaws in there. If something looks out of the ordinary, use the “Repair File” option in Word.
You may also try to open the file with an older version of Trados, should you have one such spare version laying around.
Another way to go about this is to verify the file directly within Trados. Just go to Tools>Verify, or press the F8 key on your keyboard. This will check the formal errors within the document (inconsistencies, punctuation, terminological errors) as well as if the file itself has an error, which will make exporting it later impossible.
If nothing else works, open the file in Word again and divide it into smaller files. Then open it with Trados and you should be fine. This trick solves it most of the time.
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File version error
Often times when the linguist opens up Trados and uploads a new type of document, the “An error occurred while trying to determine the file version” message pops up. Your only option at this point is to hit the “OK” button, as it is the only button you’re going to get. This is at least the case with most Trados versions so far.
What can you do about it? The simple and most common solution here is to double check if you haven’t deleted, renamed or moved the source file, the one you used to create a bilingual file in SDL. This could be the reason why Trados simply can’t find it anymore. Start by closing Trados and then put back all of the files that return an error in the original folder.
Another way to look at this is if something else blocks the access to the file. This usually happens because of the antivirus, so make sure there are no security discrepancies between the two programs.
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Tagging errors
A common error in Trados has to do with cleaning the bilingual files, more precisely the tagging errors from just before formatting the target file. Translators get these errors when they try to clean the files which will later be sent out to their clients. Most of the issues show up when they work on PDF file conversions.
If these tags are not copied exactly like in the source file, when you export a Word file, for example, the text will look bad. Elements of it will be out of place, or have missing features such as bolded or italic words.
The easy solution here is to manually copy the tags as you go along with your translation. If there are too many tags in your content, you can use the Copy Source to Target options on your segments, and then do the translation inside those individual tags.
Another possible way around it is to export the end file just like you would, and then manually format the file in Word and make it look like the source file once more.
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“Dependency file was not found”
Translators agree this one is among the hardest errors to solve while you peacefully work in Trados. Because of this error, linguists can’t open the .xliff file or create a target file for the translation they’ve worked on for so long. There are some solutions to this but most of them are time-consuming and can often lead to other errors, each of which more daunting than the last one. What you have to do in order to get rid of the issue differs based on the file you’re using.
Let’s take simple files for our example. Click the “Yes” button when the error comes along and then select the original file, for example a .docx, making sure you hit the arrow from the menu on the right and select the “Field Name” or write “*” over the blank.
After opening the file, make sure you first save it before starting to work on it, just as an extra precaution measure. You can never be too sure. In order to create the target file, you should now be able to select the “Save Target As” option and then create a new, clean file.
For some reason, this simple act solves the problem in most cases. If you can’t solve it like this, or have a package file, click here for more options on how to solve the issue.
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The file does not contain any bilingual segments
This error comes up quite often when you try to open and work on a Word document over in Trados. After you’ve selected the file, Trados comes up with “The file you are opening does not contain any bilingual segments” error message. Most of the times, this issues has a simple solutions. You just check the “Process files with tw4winMark style” option in Trados.
In order to reach this precious checkbox, hit Options>File Type>Microsoft Word>Common, and then check the box. Make sure you’re checking the boxes of all available Microsoft Word versions Trados has in its library.
If the problem persists, change the ending of the file to .rtf and then you should be able to work on it without any more issues.
Bonus: Other errors and how to solve them
Above we’ve mentioned just 5 of the more common errors one can find within Trados. If you stumble upon others, and we are confident you will, don’t panic! Here you can find many more Trados errors as well as solutions for them. Here you can read about the past and present of the software. And here you can enjoy an article about the future of the most popular translation tool ever created.
Good luck with error-free translations!