Can Wf Classic show TM match differences using text formatting (red/blue/strikethrough, etc.)?
Thread poster: Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:56
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
May 16, 2017

Just a quick question from a newbie playing around with Wordfast Classic: are differences between my source text and fuzzy matches not shown in some way. Most CAT tools have special formatting to show stuff like:

red font / strikethrough = text not present / deleted text
blue font = added
green = changed
etc.

Is there any way to do this in Wf Classic?

Michael

Aha, found it: Ctrl+Alt+M

It's not great, but at least
... See more
Just a quick question from a newbie playing around with Wordfast Classic: are differences between my source text and fuzzy matches not shown in some way. Most CAT tools have special formatting to show stuff like:

red font / strikethrough = text not present / deleted text
blue font = added
green = changed
etc.

Is there any way to do this in Wf Classic?

Michael

Aha, found it: Ctrl+Alt+M

It's not great, but at least it's sth.

[Edited at 2017-05-16 23:01 GMT]
Collapse


 
Wojciech_ (X)
Wojciech_ (X)
Poland
Local time: 09:56
English to Polish
+ ...
Glad you've found it. May 16, 2017

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:

Just a quick question from a newbie playing around with Wordfast Classic: are differences between my source text and fuzzy matches not shown in some way. Most CAT tools have special formatting to show stuff like:

red font / strikethrough = text not present / deleted text
blue font = added
green = changed
etc.

Is there any way to do this in Wf Classic?

Michael

Aha, found it: Ctrl+Alt+M

It's not great, but at least it's sth.

[Edited at 2017-05-16 22:36 GMT]


I was just about to write you about it.
In my opinion, present incarnation of Wordfast Classic is much less useful than the previous one.
I sometimes used version 6.04k which worked wonders for me. It had much better Autocomplete and was slightly faster than the present version.

[Edited at 2017-05-16 22:46 GMT]


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:56
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for the info! May 16, 2017

Wojciech_M wrote:

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:

Just a quick question from a newbie playing around with Wordfast Classic: are differences between my source text and fuzzy matches not shown in some way. Most CAT tools have special formatting to show stuff like:

red font / strikethrough = text not present / deleted text
blue font = added
green = changed
etc.

Is there any way to do this in Wf Classic?

Michael

Aha, found it: Ctrl+Alt+M

It's not great, but at least it's sth.

[Edited at 2017-05-16 22:36 GMT]


I was just about to write you about it.
In my opinion, present incarnation of Wordfast Classic is much less useful than the previous one.
I sometimes used version 6.04k which worked wonders for me. It had much better Autocomplete and was slightly faster than the present version.

[Edited at 2017-05-16 22:46 GMT]


Hmm, so am running some test with it, but if you have a few glossaries switched on, with their own highlighting colour, this makes it impossible to see certain differences after pressing Ctrl+Alt+M. Is there a shortcut to temporarily not use glossary highlighting, so I can see the differences properly? Or some other workaround?

I also thought about switching off highlighting for glossaries (i.e. making it transparent) (but this isn't possible it seems) and using the "Terminology Companion" window for matches instead.

################ The solution would be for Ctrl+Alt+M difference highlighting to override glossary match highlighting. That is, it should be shown on top of it.

I'm testing v6.45. What exactly is better about 6.04's auto-complete?

[Edited at 2017-05-16 23:12 GMT]

[Edited at 2017-05-16 23:13 GMT]

[Edited at 2017-05-16 23:16 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:56
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Michael May 17, 2017

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
Aha, found it: Ctrl+Alt+M
It's not great, but at least it's sth.


And, it's not always reliable.

And, it only shows source text differences, not target text differences.


 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 09:56
Spanish to English
+ ...
Horses for courses May 17, 2017

There is a Spanish saying which literally translated says "Don't ask the elm tree for pears". I think WordFast classic does what it does do quite well, and I've been using it, or at least some of its functions, for a few years now and I'm quite happy with it. However, if you're wanting it to perform with all the bells and whistles of more expensive or complex CATs, I'd say you're backing a deuce.

 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:56
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for the info! May 17, 2017

Wojciech_M wrote:

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:

Just a quick question from a newbie playing around with Wordfast Classic: are differences between my source text and fuzzy matches not shown in some way. Most CAT tools have special formatting to show stuff like:

red font / strikethrough = text not present / deleted text
blue font = added
green = changed
etc.

Is there any way to do this in Wf Classic?

Michael

Aha, found it: Ctrl+Alt+M

It's not great, but at least it's sth.

[Edited at 2017-05-16 22:36 GMT]


I was just about to write you about it.
In my opinion, present incarnation of Wordfast Classic is much less useful than the previous one.
I sometimes used version 6.04k which worked wonders for me. It had much better Autocomplete and was slightly faster than the present version.

[Edited at 2017-05-16 22:46 GMT]


Hmm, so am running some test with it, but if you have a few glossaries switched on, with their own highlighting colour, this makes it impossible to see certain differences after pressing Ctrl+Alt+M. Is there a shortcut to temporarily not use glossary highlighting, so I can see the differences properly? Or some other workaround?

I'm testing v6.45. What exactly is better about 6.04's auto-complete?


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:56
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
:-( May 17, 2017

Samuel Murray wrote:

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
Aha, found it: Ctrl+Alt+M
It's not great, but at least it's sth.


And, it's not always reliable.

And, it only shows source text differences, not target text differences.


Hmm, yes, I have heard other people say that it isn't reliable.

However, regarding your second statement, I thought it did show target text differences. At least the version I'm currently testing (v.6.45 - 2016-06-23) seems to do so. If something has changed, Wf seems to highlight it in yellow, in both the src and trgt text.

Just a shame my glossary match highlighting covers them all up, so they become useless.

Is there any way (maybe in Pandora's box or some setting I have overlooked) to:
(1) temporarily disable glossary match highlighting, or
(2) permanently disable glossary match highlighting,
… so match difference highlighting isn't covered up after pressing Ctrl+Alt+M?


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:56
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Michael May 17, 2017

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
However, regarding your second statement, I thought it did show target text differences. At least the version I'm currently testing (v.6.45 - 2016-06-23) seems to do so. If something has changed, Wf seems to highlight it in yellow, in both the src and trgt text.


Maybe it's because I'm using an old version. But here's how you can test it: close the translation (Alt+End), then make an edit in the target text of a segment that have already been added to the TM (without using Alt+down), and then use Alt+down on that segment. It should give you a red border (to alert you that the text in the segment is different from that of the TM), but... does it also highlight the target text difference?

Just a shame my glossary match highlighting covers them all up, so they become useless.


Odd, in my WFC (6.03t), the yellow highlighting supersedes glossary highlighting. Have you tried pressing Alt+left or Alt+right?


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:56
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Hmm. May 17, 2017

Samuel Murray wrote:

Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:
However, regarding your second statement, I thought it did show target text differences. At least the version I'm currently testing (v.6.45 - 2016-06-23) seems to do so. If something has changed, Wf seems to highlight it in yellow, in both the src and trgt text.


Maybe it's because I'm using an old version. But here's how you can test it: close the translation (Alt+End), then make an edit in the target text of a segment that have already been added to the TM (without using Alt+down), and then use Alt+down on that segment. It should give you a red border (to alert you that the text in the segment is different from that of the TM), but... does it also highlight the target text difference?


Ahaa, yes, that works.

Just a shame my glossary match highlighting covers them all up, so they become useless.
Odd, in my WFC (6.03t), the yellow highlighting supersedes glossary highlighting. Have you tried pressing Alt+left or Alt+right?


Hmm, yes, tried that, and they definitely get covered by the glossary highlighting. Looks like something changed between your version and the latest versions. I also tried the new beta. Same problem.

Michael


 
Jean Lachaud
Jean Lachaud  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:56
English to French
+ ...
Yellow highlights May 17, 2017

WfC DOES show differences between source text and matches. The differences are highlighted in yellow on the match SOURCE text. Indeed, only missing or different text is highlighted.

Red border means that the target text is different from the existing TM target unit when the source text is different. IOW, a red border means that the target has been modified without the segment being entered into the TM, which is usually the case when target text is edited without opening the segment.
... See more
WfC DOES show differences between source text and matches. The differences are highlighted in yellow on the match SOURCE text. Indeed, only missing or different text is highlighted.

Red border means that the target text is different from the existing TM target unit when the source text is different. IOW, a red border means that the target has been modified without the segment being entered into the TM, which is usually the case when target text is edited without opening the segment.



Michael Joseph Wdowiak Beijer wrote:

Just a quick question from a newbie playing around with Wordfast Classic: are differences between my source text and fuzzy matches not shown in some way. Most CAT tools have special formatting to show stuff like:

red font / strikethrough = text not present / deleted text
blue font = added
green = changed
etc.

Is there any way to do this in Wf Classic?

Michael

Aha, found it: Ctrl+Alt+M

It's not great, but at least it's sth.

[Edited at 2017-05-16 23:01 GMT]
Collapse


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:56
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@JL May 18, 2017

JL01 wrote:
Red border means that the target text is different from the existing TM target unit when the source text is [the same].


I suppose you meant "when the source text is the same". Yes, that is true. Even though WFC is capable of detecting that the text is different, it does not highlight those differences, which means the translator has to compare the TM target text with the segment target text manually (and this is made more difficult by the fact that the TM target text is displayed in a smaller font).

In other words, a red border means that the target has been modified without the segment being entered into the TM, which is usually the case when target text is edited without opening the segment.


It does not mean that the segment's target text has been modified at any stage -- it simply means that the segment's target text is different from that of the TM. There can be many reasons for this.

For example, if in the second half of the file you encounter a sentence that is identical to a previously translated sentence, but which must be translated differently, you would change the proposed match, and WFC would update the TM with that new text. Later, when you review your translation, segment by segment, and you encounter the first instance of that identical source text sentence, WFC warns you with a red border, but you still have to manually check both target texts to make a decision about whether in this particular case you should overwrite the existing target text with the TM's target text or retain your original translation.

There is no rule in translation that identical segments with identical meaning should always have identical target text. When I review a translation for which the client had said "make no changes purely for the sake of consistency, but correct only actual errors", and I find in two different files two identical segments with two different translations, then it would have been incredibly helpful to see how the two translations differ, to be able to decide whether to accept both, or not.

But yes, sometimes it is caused by the translation having been modified without opening the segment -- but it is not always feasible to open each individual segment. For example, when doing a spell-check, or doing a find/replace operation on the entire file.


 


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Can Wf Classic show TM match differences using text formatting (red/blue/strikethrough, etc.)?







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