Make sure to follow the steps in this chapter before you start to translate

Table of contents

Related pages


General measures

Prerequisites

You can find general information regarding the use of memoQ in the Kilgray memoQ help

This sections contains specific information regarding translation of documents using the memoQ desktop application.

The memoQ desktop application must be installed on your PC and set up as described in Installation and setup of memoQ.

Get documents for translation/review

You must either Check out a project from a memoQ server (usual method when working for PRODOC) or you can Translate a package when you work for a different translation agency:

memoQ desktop user interface

Open a single file

  • Just double-click on the file name

Open more than one file (create view first)

If you have to translate/review more than one file, you must create a view in order to be able to view all files together in one window and perform Find&Replace or sorting or filter actions for all files together

  • under Project home select all documents to be reviewed
  • right-click and select Create View

memoQ project home - translations - create view

  • assign a name to the view in the next window and click OK
    memoQ project home - translations - name view

  • under Views you can open the view you just created
    memoQ project home - translations - show view



Delete View after use!

You must delete your views before closing/delivering a project - otherwise there might be problems during synchronization!

memoQ project home - translations - remove view

NO documents are deleted when a view is removed, only the view itself is deleted.

Spell check settings

Activate automatic spell check

In general, you should use our recommended settings, as described in Installation and setup of memoQ.

Make sure that the following is set:

memoQ options dialog

memoQ options - check spelling as you type

This will underline misspelled word while you are typing:

misspelled word underlined in memoQ

Use Ignore lists for quick spellcheck

If the Check spelling as you type option is active (see above), memoQ underlines those words in red, that are not found in the spellcheck dictionaries.

This helps you to identify words for which spelling should be checked.
Correctly spelled words can be added to ignore lists, in order to never be bothered by them again.

Add new words to the ignore lists

  • Use the Add command to add new words to the selected ignore list.

Spaces and other non-printing characters

Non printing characters apart from the normal space character are special space characters and special hyphens.
These special spaces and hyphens are used to keep the characters around them together. Examples are given below.

In technical documentation good technical writers will make use of non breaking spaces, non-breaking hyphens and other special space characters in order to get correct word wrapping automatically e.g. for numbers and physical units, but also for proper names.

Example

You might want to keep e.g. PRODOC Translations always together in one line.

Using a non-breaking space between PRODOC and Translations will do the job for you.

If the source text contains a lot of special characters, you, as the translator, should be able to recognize them and enter them into your translation.

This is why you need to see the non-printing characters!

Activate the display of non-printing characters

In general, you should use our recommended settings, as described in Installation and setup of memoQ.

Make sure that the following is set:

memoQ options dialog

memoQ options - show non-printing characters

Representation of non-printing characters

Spaces

See, how spaces look in the memoQ editor:

Non-printing characters activatedNon-printing characters NOT activatedEffects of the different use of spaces on word-wrap at the end of a line

memoQ editor - show different kinds of spaces

memoQ editor - do not show non-printing characters

memoQ editor - effect of different types of spaces on word wrap

  1. Normal space
  2. Non-breaking space
  3. t-space (=non-breaking space with the width of a t-character)
  4. No space

You can see the different types of spaces

  1. Normal space
  2. Non-breaking space
  3. t-space (=non-breaking space with the width of a t-character
  4. No space

You can not see the different types of spaces

  1. A normal space will not keep 159 and Ah together in one line
  2. A non-breaking space will keep 159 and Ah together in one line
  3. A t-space or any other special space character will keep 159 and Ah together in one line
  4. No space will also keep 159 and Ah together in one line

How you enter the different types of spaces into your text:

  1. Normal space → space bar
  2. Non-breaking space → CTRL+SHIFT+space bar
  3. t-space → copy from source text or define keyboard shortcut if it occurs frequently
Hyphens
Non-printing characters activatedNon-printing characters NOT activated

memoQ editor - show different kinds of hyphens

memoQ editor - do not show non-printing characters

memoQ editor - effect of different types of hyphens on word wrap

  1. Normal hyphen
  2. Non-breaking hyphen
  1. Normal hyphen
  2. Non-breaking hyphen
  1. A normal hyphen will not keep ISO17100 and -1 together in one line
  2. The non-breaking hyphen will keep ISO17100 and -1 together in one line

How you enter the different types of hyphens into your text:

  1. Normal hyphen → "-" sign
  2. Non-breaking hyphen → CTRL+SHIFT+"-" sign



For further information you may continue with:

Translate with memoQ

More information about PRODOC and corresponding legal information incl. the privacy statement for this space can be found at https://prodoc-translations.com