Menu
▾
▴
#245 Formatting shortcuts
Sometimes a translator needs to change the formatting
of the target text. Usually this means making it bold,
underlined, or italicised.
According to Thelma Sabim, a specific case of this is
when translating into (Brazilian?) Portugese, in which
language foreign words are always italicised.
OmegaT could have the following shortcuts:
CtrlCmd+I - Italic
CtrlCmd+U - Underline
CtrlCmd+B - Bold
These are the shortcuts usually appearing in document
editors such as MS Word and OOo Writer. However, in
OmegaT CtrlCmd+U is already used for "Go to next
untranslated segment".
I think we need completely user-configurable shortcuts
first, before we can implement this RFE.
Also, this would need some interfacing with file
filters, as only the file filters contain specific
knowledge of file formats. There are 2 options for this:
1) When the user calls a specific formatting shortcut,
OmegaT asks the respective file filter about a shortcut
tag to add to the target text. The file filter then
knows how to translate that shortcut to the correct
formatting tag of the respective file format.
2) When the user calls a specific formatting shortcut,
OmegaT inserts something like <bold>...</bold>, and
each file filter translates this to the correct
formatting of the respective file format.
View and moderate all "feature-requests Discussion" comments posted by this user
Mark all as spam, and block user from posting to "Feature Requests"
All my suport for adding simple formatting (perhaps using tags?). As noted previously, this would come in particularly handy when translating text which make reference to a foreign concept.
This is a badly needed feature.
Another example where it is necessary: where the source language uses upper case to HIGHLIGHT something but the target language does not have case, and therefore must use bold or italics to reproduce the same effect. For example:
Source:
This is a BIG thing.Target:
هذا شيء عظيم.The user needs to apply bold or italics or underlined formatting to the translation of "BIG" (i.e. عظيم) because the target language does not have upper case and uses formatting instead to highlight words.
I would expect buttons in OmegaT's interface (b, i, u) or menu options to apply the desired formatting.
Last edit: msoutopico 2020-12-18
I'm relatively new to OmegaT, but have worked with MemoQ a lot and often with .xlf files where no formatting of this kind was possible.
I'm wondering, what kind of limitations are on us in this regard? Is formatting impossible in all .xlf files, or just the ones which that one agency was sending me? Are there other major formats that do not allow for formatting other than via tags?
Still, I'm adding a very enthusiastic vote for direct formatting of bold/italics/underlining within OmegaT
I'd like to add my vote as well.
I translate texts that contain references to British legal/administrative documents, the titles of which have to remain untranslated, and marked as such. I definitely need to be able to add italics, and to recognize them in the editor as well.
(Also, it's nice to be able to supply italics where they are erroneously missing in the original.)