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
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:

2. Translate the file

OmegaT will present one segment at a time for you to translate. After you have translated a segment, press Ctrl+U to move to the next untranslated segment (or Ctrl+Shift+U to move to the next translated segment). Whenever you want to see what your translation will look like in its final format, press Ctrl+D to generate the translated documents, which will be created in the /target/ subfolder of your project folder. During translation, use the Edit and Go To menus to perform various useful functions.

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.

4. Generate the translated file

Once you have made certain that there are no tag errors in your translation, press Ctrl+D to generate the target files, which will be created in the /target/ subfolder of your project folder.

5. Few more things to remember