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Help with Transit Termstar PE

• When you download your .pxf file, you should save it in your Transit directory, which should have automatically installed in your Program Files directory, so that you can quickly retrieve and open it.

• Go to Project > Receive and import your project. Let the program name the folder for you (you may experience problems if you name it to something else). If it will overwrite a previous project you did for us, it is advisable you copy the previous files elsewhere as a backup, so that you do not lose your previous translations. You can erase the subfolders later and they should be located in your Project subfolder of your Transit folder (although it is generally recommended to always save your translations for one or two months after you delivered them to the customer).

• You can change how you view the windows, the colours, and whether or not you want to see the formatting tags. More instructions on this below.

• Go to File > Open > Language Pair to open the file or one of the files in the project you just downloaded.

• Go to the beginning of your target window (the language you will be translating into). Go to the first segment to translate, which should be marked grey or colour highlighted in some way. Notice that the corresponding segment in the Source window is also highlighted.

• Choose Edit > Find to Fuzzy Matches (or press ALT ENTER). This should start the entire process, and the rest should be automatic.

• If no Fuzzy Matches were found for the text, you should remain in that segment and hear a ‘ding’ on your computer. In this case, you will get paid 100% for that segment and simply translate over top. You can press the Insert key on your computer and write over top of the text, or accomplish this in whatever manner you choose, but you must NOT erase any of the coloured formatting codes. In this case, it would be advisable to go to View > Display/Hide Attributes, and select Hide Segment Markers and Display Short Tags. Make sure you do NOT erase the blue #, < > or other such characters. You do not have to worry about formatting but only worry that you do not ERASE these.
  Sometimes a word or phrase within your segment will be bold, italic, or with some other formatting, in which case it will be surrounded with the blue < > markers. You should keep these where they are (surrounding those words) when you reorganise your sentence while translating. However, it is not super catastrophic if you make a mistake here, but the sentence, once exported, can look like bold and italic. So simply try to be careful with this. Otherwise you do not need to worry about any formatting issues.
  Once you have completed the successful translation of that segment (your cursor should still be within the segment and it should still be highlighted), press ALT INS (insert key near the top right of your keyboard). This is extremely crucial, because it will mark that segment as Translated and jump you to the next Untranslated or Partially Translated text (or jump you to the Fuzzy Matches window if it is a repeat translation). If you are not certain about your translation or simply cannot translate it because it is too hard for you, do NOT press ALT INS but simply move your cursor to the next segment (and press ALT ENTER in that new segment to start the process again). This will keep that segment marked as Untranslated (you can see the segment’s status in the status bar at the bottom of your monitor). You will not get paid for it and someone else who can handle that text can later come back to it. If you want to go back to that segment after you finish your file, you can go to the beginning of the file, then select Cursor > Next Untranslated text (you will see the shortcut keys for this, and more is provided below for your convenience).
  But BEFORE you ALT INS a segment and leave it for good, you should proofread it NOW. Otherwise, if you will want to proofread your translation after you complete the document, you will not be able to distinguish your own translation from the previously translated text, and end up wasting your time proofreading sections for which you will not get paid. If you are not certain and want to proofread it later, simply do not ALT INS the segment so that the program can automatically take you to those segments when you are ready to proofread your document (at which time you should definitely ALT INS the segment, unless you are still not certain and want to leave those segments for someone else).

• However, if some Fuzzy Matches were found for your segment, you will be taken to the Fuzzy Matches window. You can resize this window how you like. The program will always remember how you positioned your windows, and you can save your settings < for future projects.
  Once in the Fuzzy Matches window, you will see the original source, and the new source, with some words coloured different ways (which you can adjust yourself <) to show you the difference. You will see the Target New window, where your cursor should be. Make any changes here. If the text is long and your Fuzzy Window cuts off some of the "Target New" text, you can temporarily maximise that window in the usual Windows' way. Once you are happy with your changes, press ALT ENTER, which should take you back to the Target window. If you are happy with your translation, you can press ALT INS, or just jump to the next segment.

• Sometimes you may want to split up sentences or combine them, which may seem difficult if the sentences are individual and separate segments in the source document. Simply let a segment in the target file end on a comma or space, or put a period within a segment. The alignment does not have to be perfect but should be approximate. What is most important is that the text actually flows naturally in the target language. The segments will be lined up next to one another and the document proofread once imported back into Word etc.

• When translating you notice a space at the end of the paragraph or sentence of the original text/segment, you should make sure to add the same at the end of the target segment.

• While translating, make sure to manually save (CTRL S) your translation once in a while, as the program can get quirky, and we don't want you to lose your work. Otherwise, you can select Autosave under Options > Profile > Settings, but I prefer to manually save, in case an autosave tries to run at the same time as a fuzzy match search, forcing your computer to go berzerk, which sometimes happens in Windows.

• If at any point you want to add some terms to the dictionary, select the word(s) in both the source and target windows and the select Edit > Transfer Marked Terms to Dictionary, but you should first find out from us what the procedures are for the particular project you are working on. For example, there might be a lead translator responsible for this, in which case you might be asked to send the dictionary list in a Word file for their approval. Other times, if you are working on the documents yourself, by adding words to the dictionary, we can automatically translate all those words for you after we import your file and before we prepare subsequent files for you, saving you lots of typing work.

• If on the other hand you want to view the established dictionary terms while translating, there are several ways you can do this. Click here to view what your window may look like. This is according to window Setup choice < > , which you can set up here < . You will see the regular window of applicable dictionary terms (those which are present in the segment/sentence you are presently working on) at the bottom left. Terms in the dictionary are marked red. While in the target/translation window, if you have your cursor at the beginning of one of these red marked terms, as per the keyboard shortcut instructions below, you can press ALT T to automatically load the translated term, so that you do not have to type it out yourself. If for some reason you want to see the entire dictionary you can go to the Window menu and select "TermStar (Project Dictionaries)". The popup window shows this Dictionary window partially covering the target translation window but not covering the small and regular dictionary window to the bottom left (you can resize these windows as you wish). To navigate in the full dictionary window, press one of the letters and then use Page Up or Page Down on your keyboard.

• Usually you should perform a spell check, simply copy/pasting the entire document into a Word file and check for typo mistakes that way. If it is a large project with many translators, a proofreader, and you do not make an unusual amount of spelling mistakes, you might not be required to perform a spellcheck, as this can be performed later during the final proofread. It is best to ask in this case, otherwise assume that you should perform your own spellcheck.

• Once you are completed with a file and want to send us your translation, simply select Project > Send and send us the corresponding .txf file (NOT .pxf!!). If you decide to make some changes later, you can Send it to us again and our reimport of this same file will only overwrite your previous translation. The important point is to keep sending us your translations, preferably once a day, based on which we can import it and update the translation memory, for when creating more files (either for yourself or for other translators).