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GLOSSARIES |
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PowerGlot databases were shortly described in the previous (Basics) section. This chapter teaches you how to do most common operations on glossaries.
Glossaries are a crucial tool if you plan on automating part or all of you translation work with PowerGlot. They are powerful tools but need to be crafted with great care for maximum efficiency.
A glossary basically consists of terms. Each term defines a source text and a translation, with various options. Once youÕve created a glossary, you can use it to have PowerGlot perform automatic translations of those terms.
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CREATING GLOSSARIES |
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To create a new glossary, simply select the New glossary item from the File menu. This creates an empty glossary, ready to be filled with terms. You can also create a glossary from an already translated database. This process is described in the Databases section of this manual.
A new, empty glossary is shown in the picture below.
Once you have created a new glossary, the first thing to do is to select the source and target languages. This is especially important when you create a glossary to translate terms accross two different script systems (i.e. Roman and Japanese), because PowerGlot uses the Source Language and Target Language informations to determine which font to use when displaying and editing terms.
As in the Database Settings window, you can only select those languages for which a script system is installed on your machine. As an example, if you donÕt have the Arabic script system on your machine, you wonÕt be able to select the Arabic or Persian languages.
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OPENING GLOSSARIES |
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To open a glossary, double-click its icon in the Finder, or drop it on the PowerGlot icon. You can also select the Open glossary... item from the Tools menu in PowerGlot.
If you try to open a glossary which defines terms for a script system not installed on your machine (you probably donÕt have the proper language kit installed), the software informs you that you can only look at the glossary, not modify its terms (unless the glossary is empty).
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ADDING TERMS TO GLOSSARIES |
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To add a new term to a glossary, simply enter the text in the Translate: and To: fields, check the appropriate option boxes, then click the Add button. The new term is inserted at the end of the terms list.
- Source and target text
The Translate: text field contains the source text, the one that PowerGlot looks for when performing automatic translation of your databases. The To: text field contains the target text, the one that will replace the source text. Each text can be a single word or a complete sentence, but itÕs up to you to decide which options apply to a term.
- Term options
Below the editable text fields are the term options boxes. Each checkbox has a specific meaning, detailed in the table below. Note that these checkboxes have exactly the same meaning than the ones in the Database Find/Replace window.
Glossary term options | |
Ignore case |
If you check this option, PowerGlot performs a
case-insensitive search. For example, if the source text
is ŌCancelÕ and a text item contains ŌCANCELÕ, a match is
found. |
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Entire word |
If you check this option, PowerGlot considers a
successful match only if the text found is an entire
word. For this option to work, you must only type one
word (it wonÕt work with two distinct word - for example,
if the source text is ŌDo itÕ and PowerGlot finds a text
item containing ŌDo itÕ, the match wonÕt be taken because
ŌDo itÕ is two words). |
Entire text |
If you check this option, a text item must contain
exactly the text you typed in the source text field to be
considered a successful match. If there are extra
characters in the text item, it wonÕt be taken as a
match. |
Keep case on first word |
This option is used only for languages in the Roman
script system. If you check this box, PowerGlot looks if
the first letter of the text to be replaced in an item is
upper- or lower-cased, and applies the same casing to the
first letter of the replacement text. This allows you to
perform replacements while keeping the correct case for
the first letter of the first word of a sentence. |
- Contextual information
Below the term options, there is a pop-up menu defining the context in which the term should be searched/replaced by PowerGlot. The available choices are described in the table below.
If you select a context other than Everywhere, a small icon appears on the left of the term in the list. This icon is shown in the left column of the table below.
Contextual term options | |
Everywhere |
The source term will be searched everywhere in the
database. |
Container |
The source term will be searched only in the specified
container. If you select this option, a second pop-up
menu appears with a list of all the text containers
defined by PowerGlot. |
Resource type |
The source term will be searched only in the text
items coming from the specified resource type. If you
select this option, a resource type field appears. You
can then type the four-character code defining the
requested resource type (i.e. ŌDITLÕ). |
Resource type/ID |
The source term will be searched only in the text
items coming from the specified resource type/ID. If you
select this option, two editing fields appear: one to
enter the requested resource type (i.e. ŌDITLÕ),
the other to enter the resource ID (i.e. 128). |
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SAVING GLOSSARIES |
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To save a glossary to disk, select the Save item from the File menu. You can also save your glossary under another name, using the Save as... menu item. The next save operation will then be done to this new file.
When you close a glossary window, PowerGlot asks if you want to save it in the case you have modified something but not saved.
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PRINTING GLOSSARIES |
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At any point in your work, you may need to print a glossary. Simply select the Print... item in the File menu. DonÕt forget to select the correct page setup before by selecting the Page Setup item in the File menu. The glossary is printed as it actually appears on the screen.
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USING GLOSSARIES |
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Once you have created a glossary, you can use it to automatically translate terms in a database. This process is described in the Automatic translation with glossaries in the Databases section of this manual.
Remember that after creating a glossary, you must save it to the disk before using it. A good way of doing things is to create a few glossaries containing the most common terms (for example the menu titles and items common to most programs, the name of most common buttons in dialog boxes, and so on). You can also use a glossary built by PowerGlot from a previously translated database to automatically translate a new version of a software youÕve already worked on. This process is described in the Using previously localized versions of the Advanced topics section of this manual.