Contents

• Introduce myself
• How I use XLIFF
• Challenges faced when working with XLIFF
• Proposals/ideas for the TC/new version

• XLIFF versions

OmegaT

XLIFF created by third-parties

• Third-party organizations (content creators or platform developers):
  • Create XLIFF files (often with home-made routines)
• Our role in those cases is to provide:
  • internalization consultancy (e.g. XLIFF preparation best practices), feedback and advanced CAT tool support to file preparators
  • CAT tool support to users
    • installation and customization
    • training
    • translation and revision guides
    • helpdesk

XLIFF created by my team

• Third-party organizations (content creators or platform developers):
  • Provide source content
• Our role in those cases is to provide:
  • internalization consultancy about the best way to produce source content
  • localization engineering (creating XLIFF files and translation packages)
    • Okapi for full workflow automation in the server
    • memoQ for better control over file preparation (e.g. more sophisticated filters)
  • CAT tool support to users (...)

no XLIFF

• Roles as in the previous two scenarios...
• XLIFF makes sense to ensure interoperability but not so much when we provide the CAT tool / license.
• Relative added value (other than interoperability):
  • Pros:
    • segment ID guarantees ICE translations
    • protection of source files
    • segment status (no support in OmegaT)
  • Cons:
    • one extra layer of complexity
    • no direct preview

Source-language survey

Below are some ways citizens can get involved in the work of the European Union. Which, if any, have you heard of?

• Events or online activities organised by together.eu
• Petitions to the European Parliament
• Contacting an MEP about an issue

And which, if any, of these have you actively taken part in?

• Events or online activities organised by together.eu
• Petitions to the European Parliament
• Contacting an MEP about an issue

Greek translation

Below are some ways citizens can get involved in the work of the European Union. Which, if any, have you heard of?

• Events or online activities organised by together.eu
• Petitions to the European Parliament
• Contacting an MEP about an issue

And which, if any, of these have you actively taken part in?

• Events or online activities organised by together.eu
• Petitions to the European Parliament
• Contacting an MEP about an issue

• Τα αιτήματα προς το Ευρωπαϊκό Κοινοβούλιο

• Σε αιτήματα προς το Ευρωπαϊκό Κοινοβούλιο

Czech translation

Below are some ways citizens can get involved in the work of the European Union. Which, if any, have you heard of?

• Events or online activities organised by together.eu
• Petitions to the European Parliament
• Contacting an MEP about an issue

And which, if any, of these have you actively taken part in?

• Events or online activities organised by together.eu
• Petitions to the European Parliament
• Contacting an MEP about an issue

• O peticích určených Evropskému parlamentu

• Peticí určených Evropskému parlamentu

Hungarian translation

Below are some ways citizens can get involved in the work of the European Union. Which, if any, have you heard of?

• Events or online activities organised by together.eu
• Petitions to the European Parliament
• Contacting an MEP about an issue

And which, if any, of these have you actively taken part in?

• Events or online activities organised by together.eu
• Petitions to the European Parliament
• Contacting an MEP about an issue

• Az Európai Parlamenthez benyújtott petíciók

• Az Európai Parlamenthez benyújtott petíciókban

Multi-disciplinary teams

• People at organizations responsible for creating XLIFF files we must work with do not have the localization engineering know-how they need:
  • to develop translation-friendly authoring tools
  • to create translation-friendly XLIFF files
  • to understand our feedback
• They are often very reluctant to re-think their tools and content to introduce localization best practices
• We spend a lot of time in testing and making our feedback accessible to them, and
• We might end up working in sub-optimal conditions (valid XLIFF but poorly crafted).

Technology

Open source CAT tools and localization tool-kits we use are often not optimal or it is not easy to improve them.

• Open-source promise: "Just hire a developer to do what you need"
• In practice:
  • Developers who know the code base
    • are not easy to find
    • don't have capacity
    • have prohibitive prices
  • Other developers
    • are not reliable and might introduce bugs

Technology

Commercial tools (memoQ, Trados, Swordfish*):

• tend to be more mature in terms of modern translation best practices
• manufacturers react more quickly if a bug is found
• not affordable as workstation tools for linguists in some low-budget projects
  • often we use them as localization took-kits to generate XLIFF files that we then translate/revise in OmegaT

A second level of validation??

XLIFF files

• can validate in an XLIFF checker or against the DTD
• while being totally unworkable

Could the specs include some constraints that prevent bad practices? like:

• line breaks and whitespace
• leading/trailing tags
• inline codes

Tech fiction? + I am aware these deficiencies are probably very rare in the localization industry.