Using OmegaT to translate Website@School Users' Guide
Prev		Next

Using OmegaT to translate the Website@School Users'Guide

0. Introduction
1. Set up a new project
2. Translate the file
3. Validate your tags
4. Generate the translated file
5. Few more things to remember

0. Introduction

This How-to is a simplified version of the 'Learn to use OmegaT in 5 minutes'; the page you see when starting OmegaT. Screenshots are added and the text gives more explanation to facilitate starting with OmegaT.

March 2014, Dirk Schouten

1. Set up a new project

Note: On an Apple Mac, use the Command key instead of the Control key.
NOTE: Linux specific, Windows specific.

To start using OmegaT, first create a mproject that will hold all your files, such as your source file, translation memories, glossaries, and eventually your translated file.

To create a project:

Start OmegaT by clicking the OmegaT icon:

omegat_open.png
In the Menu bar select Project and in the dropdown menu select New to open the Create a New Project dialogue:

omegat_create_a_new_project.png
In the field Selection:/home/user/ or Folder name type a name for your project, for example: websiteatschool.
Remember where you create the project folder, because you need to return to that folder later on.
Click the [OK] or [Save] button to open ...
... the Create New Project dialogue:

omegat_new_project_select_source_language.png
At the top of that dialog, two dropdown menus are visible.
Do NOT touch the Source File Language: .
In the Target File Language: click on the dropdown menu to select the language in which you are going to translate the Engllish source file, for example NO or PT-BR or your language.
Next at the bottom of the window click [OK] to continue.
The Project Files dialogue opens:

omegat_project_files.png

NOTE: If you are interested in other settings of this dialog, you can return to it any time by pressing Ctrl+E.
The Project Files dialog was opened. Click on the Import Source Files... button.
The Import Source Files... window opens:

omegat_source_files_dot_dot_dot.png
Navigate to your source file, for example guidedtour.html.
NOTE: Windows will mangle the filename to guidedtour.htm (the 'l' is missing) and the name is displayed as Guided tour. leave as is and proceed.
Select the file and click [OK].
OmegaT copies the selected file to the /source/ subfolder in the websiteatschool folder of your newly created project:

omegat_project_files_added.png
NOTE: The top of the porject file is visible, thus loaded in the Editor.
NOTE: You must have saved the guidedtour.html file, for example in your Downloads folder before you can import it in OmegaT. You cannot copy the text from an e-mail.
After the source files have loaded in the Editor pane, you can click [Close] to close the Project Files dialogue.

3. Validate your tags

If your source files are formatted files, e.g. Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer or HTML, OmegaT will convert the formatting into tags that surround the text that you translate. Often documents will also have tags that have nothing to do with formatting, but which are also important in the source files (and in the translated files). A source sentence might look like:

OmegaT, however, will present this sentence in the following fashion:

The tags in OmegaT are greyed, so they are easy to recognise. They are protected, so that you cannot modify their contents, but you can delete them, enter them by hand or move them around in the target sentence. However, if you made mistakes when you typed the formatting tags, your translated files might fail to open. Therefore, press Ctrl+T before you generate your translated files, to validate that your tags are correct.

TIP: If, with your browser, surf to the generated file,, for example to:
C:\My Documents\websiteatschool\guidedtour.html You can immediately check your results. Pressing F5 on your keybord refreshes the page, so you can check your work easily.

5. Few more things to remember

If a file does not load into the Editor pane, then it could be that it is in a format that doesn't work in OmegaT. See File Filters for a list of file formats that OmegaT can handle.

You can create a new project for each new job, and you can add new source files to a project at anytime time.

To remind yourself of the project's initial settings, open the project settings dialog by pressing Ctrl+E. To see a list of files in the project, open the Project Files dialog by pressing Ctrl+L.

At the end of your translation, OmegaT exports three translation memories called level1, level2 and omegat to your project folder. The level1 and level2 memories can be shared with users of other translation programs. The memory named omegat can be used by OmegaT itself, in future projects that you create. If you place such translation memory files in the /tm/ subfolder of a project, OmegaT will automatically search them for similar segments, called "fuzzy matches".

You can add a new term to the glossary by pressing Ctrl+Shift+G, or copy existing glossaries to the /glossary/ subfolder of your project folder, and OmegaT will automatically look up words in them.

It is often useful to search for words and phrases in the source text and in your translation, so press Ctrl+F for the Text Search dialog at any time.

For a more comprehensive introduction see OmegaT for beginners on the OmegaT web site. If you need assistance with any aspect of OmegaT, feel free to join the OmegaT users group.

Using OmegaT to translate the Website@School Users'Guide

0. Introduction

1. Set up a new project

2. Translate the file

3. Validate your tags

4. Generate the translated file

5. Few more things to remember