Aligning files in Transit NXT

If you have files that were translated without a CAT tool and would like to use them as reference material, Transit NXT offers you a very powerful and easy to use alignment tool to convert them into language pairs which can then be used as reference material for future translation projects. The resulting language pairs can also be converted into the standard TMX format. Take a look at the tooltip “Converting reference material to TMX” to learn more about conversion to TMX.

Let’s see how to align files with Transit NXT’s alignment tool. You need to create an alignment project in order to align your original and the translated file. Go to Project | Administration | Create and select Alignment project. Follow the same steps as you do while creating a new project except that in the Files window, you have to select the files corresponding to each language and subsequently assign the translated file to the original file in the File assignment window as shown in the figure below:

Selecting and assigning files

You can automatically pair the original and the translated file by using the Auto button as seen in the figure below. For this, the name of the original file and the corresponding translated file should coincide to a certain extent.

Automatically assigning files for alignment

After importing the selected files and opening the language pair, go to Alignment | Alignment and activate the alignment mode by clicking on the On/Off button as shown in the figure below to start aligning:

Activating the alignment option

You can perform the following actions in order to make sure that the translated segments are correctly aligned with the source language segments:

• Join segments
• Delete segments
• Empty segments
• Split segments
• Insert empty segments

These actions can be easily performed with the help of the corresponding buttons in Alignment | Segments as shown in the figure below:

Actions to be performed while aligning a file

You might have to join two segments in the target language pane if the translation for one source segment is split into two segments. To join segment 1 and segment 2 for example, place the cursor in segment 1 and click on the Join button. Splitting a segment is required in case the translation for two source segments is combined into one segment in the target language. In order to split segments, place the cursor at the point where you wish to split and click on the Split button. An example of a scenario in which you will have to join segments is shown in the figure below:

Joining segments

If you wish to delete a particular segment in the target language or empty its content, click on the Delete or Empty button. Use the Insert button to insert a segment anywhere in the target language as required for alignment purposes.

Use the + and – keys on the numeric keypad in order to navigate between segments. While aligning, you can confirm your alignment after every n number of segments by using the Alignment | Confirm segment | To cursor option or you can also align the entire file and confirm the alignment by using the Alignment | Confirm segment | File option as shown in the figure below:

Confirming the alignment

As soon as you confirm the alignment and save the language pair, the status of the segments will change to Alignment checked (This can be seen in the Notes window. Use the ALT+4 keyboard shortcut to view the Notes window).

When Transit NXT has completed the alignment, it is highly recommended to carry out quality assurance by selecting Review | Format check | Start. Among other things, this allows you to check and adjust markups. After QA, your language pairs are ready to be used as reference material.

Before you import your project with reference material coming from an alignment project, remember to make the following settings in the Project | Administration | Settings Pretranslation tab: select the option Alignment checked in Minimum segment status, As reference segment in Status for pretranslated segments and Set segment status to ‘Check pretranslation’ if alignment segment was used as shown in the following figure:

Pretranslation settings for new project using the aligned language pairs as reference material  The flexible and very easy to use alignment tool

By setting the status as Check pretranslation for the segments coming from the alignment project, you can filter for these segments in order to revise only the aligned segments. You can find more information about how to filter segments in our tooltip “Filtering segments in Transit NXT“.

We hope you find this tooltip useful. Do not hesitate to leave your comments or propose specific topics you want us to write about.