memoQ filters for static and dynamic views and navigation

The filtering functions for translation documents in memoQ are really cool. I'm not talking about the import filters for different types of documents, though most of these are rather good, and improvements are being made all the time. I mean the ways in which you can use filters to look at the content you are translating and sort and navigate it in different ways.

The filters can be used to create static views from one or more translation documents selected on the Documents tab of the Translations window of Project home using the Create view command.

I use this function a lot to create comment and feedback lists for clients or select some particular part of my content that I want to save and work on or share separate from the rest. Exported as bilingual RTF tables, the content can be corrected or questions answered in the comments column, and all the changes and commentary can be re-imported to update your project.

What I use even more often are the dynamic filters in the translation window. There are three main types: sorting filters in a dropdown list, source and target text filters in the fields above the related columns, and the dilog filter with its many options, which is invoked with the funnel icon (2):

Source and target text filtering of the segments can be made case-sensitive by marking the icon (1). Any number of filtering operations can be applied cumulatively in sequence, and filters applied with the source and target text fields can be cleared with the red X icon (4). To clear a sorting filter, you must select "No sorting" from the dropdown menu.

These view filters can be very helpful for translation and quality assurance. But what many do not realize is that memoQ also allows you to navigate through translation segments using filter criteria. This is done with Edit > Goto Next (Ctrl+G). The filter criteria to apply for navigation are chosen under Edit > Goto Next Settings (Ctrl+Shift+G).

This often has the advantage over view filtering that all the segments remain visible and you can see the context better. Examples of this are shown for navigating to commented segments and navigating through the many footnotes in a document to check their formatting in the short (3.5 minute) video tutorial below. It was prepared with the most recent build of memoQ 2013 (6.5.15) and shows the new "golden" bubble icon for commented segments. The video demonstrates (with footnotes) how tag type can be used as a filtering or segment navigation criterion. This might come in handy for an academic thesis or a legal document with many footnotes to check.


Use the icon at the bottom right of the video to toggle full screen mode for viewing; this makes it much easier to see the details of this somewhat fast-paced clip.

0:17  Static views on the View tab of the Translations window
0:30  Dynamic source and target text field filtering
0:40  Dialog filtering with the funnel icon (3rd cumulative filter)
0:52  Using filters to navigate: Goto Next (rationale & contrast with view filter)
1:20  Goto Next settings for navigating commented segments
1:42  Navigating footnotes in a translation document with Goto Next
1:55  Setting the navigation filter for a tag type
2:30  Getting rid of a static view to allow segment joining
3:23  Oops! I join something I shouldn't and split the segment again, hoping nobody will notice.

Subscribe to my free YouTube channel and I think you'll receive updates of new video tutorials I add (or at least it'll be easier to find them). I would also like to thank Ulrich Scheffler of LSP.net for providing me with a Camtasia license recently to support my teaching - it's much better than the free Open Source CamStudio I started working with months ago, though I can definitely recommend CamStudio as a good tool to get started with making demonstration or teaching videos.

Getting a grip on memoQ QA resources

I think the initial reaction of a lot of people to memoQ's QA functions is overwhelmed bafflement. And that's really a shame. This simple, versatile and power feature included in the translation environment can save a lot of time and grief. But perhaps Kilgray and many memoQ advocates and trainers (yours truly included) have not taken as user-friendly an approach to presenting this feature as we might. The problem starts, I think, with the default QA profile in memoQ - as far as I know the only configured profile that is delivered with the software. It has nearly every damned option turned on and drives many people crazy with long lists of uninteresting alleged "errors". Even with sorting to group the problems that are of interest, the huge list of QA warnings is often like a big, nasty finger wagging in one's face. It just pisses me off.

In my previous memoQuickie posts on QA profiles and terminology QA as well as a later post with a demo video showing terminology QA in a LiveDocs alignment/editing workflow for a dictated translation, I tried to show how one can create focused QA profiles that can accomplish specific, important tasks like verifying tag integrity or checking a translation against a list of critical, mandatory terminology, but when one of my frequent collaborators called for advice on how to use memoQ to check the integrity and format of more than one hundred footnotes in an OCR document and admitted that she still had not created a custom QA profile for tags and didn't know how, I realized that my approach up to now has probably been a colossal failure.

I keep telling people how easy it is to create some of those custom QA profiles. But why should they have to for common tasks? Why doesn't Kilgray help them out a little with some demo QA profiles than can be used for common tasks, avoiding the "noise" of the point-the-finger-at-everything default profile? After all, there are many demonstration configurations for that LQA feature that is of little or no use to the freelance community. Why not something that would benefit more users?

Well, there are now a few simplified QA profiles available on Kilgray's Language Terminal:

Language Terminal is a community resource with a growing number of features, most of which I haven't blogged about for lack of time. Its future is far more interesting to me than its present, but it currently includes a small but growing library of resources such as custom filter configurations and QA profiles which can help users with certain tasks. It also offers nice online backup integration for memoQ projects and a free InDesign server. The latter can be used by anyone (including those with other tools) to create PDF previews of InDesign files they have received or translated, and the integration of this InDesign server with memoQ desktop projects is expected to increase in the not-distant future.

The three QA profiles (MQRES files which can be imported to your memoQ installation in seconds) are the ones I use most often. "Tags only" allows me to verify that I haven't messed up my target file formatting by leaving out important tags, and "Terminology check" lets me use an approved list of terms to ensure that they are translated as agreed with the client.

The "Empty QA profile" is great for the ego. Apply that to your project, and the QA check will show no errors or warning at all. Fantastic, right? If you decide that there is some particular type of error or maybe a few types that you want to check in one go, it's a simple matter to clone this file, rename it and edit to activate the QA tests of interest. Much easier than turning off all the garbage in the default profile.

Any of those three simplified profiles might make a good basis for creating an automatic QA check that best meets your needs for a particular project. And if you want to share it with others, Kilgray's Language Terminal is a good place to do so.

Nonetheless, I do hope that future builds or releases of memoQ might include these or other QA profile examples in every memoQ installation. That would surely help more users get a proper grip on memoQ's best quality assurance features.

Stridonium's Third Way: freelance translation teams

On September 30th, Stridonium will host its second professional education workshop in Holten in the Netherlands, The Third Way, to discuss practical strategies for teams of freelance language service providers to overcome the barriers of distance and technology and keep pace with the latest demands for service in a rapidly evolving market. Participants can arrive the night before the workshop for a relaxed networking dinner, enjoying the venue's outstanding cuisine and a good night's rest (a limited number of rooms are available at no additional charge to early registrants as part of the workshop package) before the the 9:00 am start the next day with a discussion led by Chartered Linguist Christina Guy and Helen Gibbons on the benefits and practicalities of working in teams and the TagTeam concept.

"The three-course lunch ... was the best I
have experienced at a conference venue."

Demonstrations and hands-on practice with tools such as TeamViewer for coaching and work collaboration alone or in combination with other media will follow with Christina on-site and me at a remote location, and after lunch I will continue teaching how free online applications can be used for restricted sharing of reference resources for group work, including translation memories and terminologies. Novel possibilities for dynamic group translation and review - almost like translation management servers but without platform restrictions - will be presented for discussion and testing. The early afternoon session will also include a brief overview of interoperable file formats for different combinations of translation environment tools among team members.

After the afternoon tea break, colleague Riccardo Schiaffino will join us remotely from Colorado in the USA to present ideas for creative, collaborative thinking in distributed teams. Riccardo is a technical translator, language consultant and teacher with long experience in managing team processes for translation and developing cost-effective, intelligent solutions to challenges expected and spontaneous. I've followed him particularly over the years for his good advice on SDL Trados and tools such as ApSIC Xbench (a QA tool which I think he knows more about than anyone else in my circles... check out his Xbench training page!).

The workshop fee, including the hotel room Sunday night (but excluding the cost of dinner) is €250 (€225 for Stridonium members) ex VAT. The availability of rooms included in the workshop fee is limited, so book early. Further information and updates can be found on the Stridonium events page, which also includes a button link for registration and payment ("Register for the Holten Lectures 2").

Attendees should bring a WLAN-capable laptop to use for the practical exercises.

The workshop is designed for freelance translators, language resource managers and others interested in effective teamwork strategies and looking to optimize workflow and keep options open for flexible language teams.

CPD points have been applied for with Bureau BTV in the Netherlands. (Update: 6 CPD points have been awarded.)