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Current translate 5 version7.21.2
Changelogs documented up to version7.21.2

Version Published Changed By Comment
CURRENT (v. 1) Apr 03, 2025 08:44

Why Translation Memory Maintenance?

Translation memory maintenance (TM maintenance) is important for maintaining the quality, consistency and efficiency of a translation memory (TM) and can be carried out for various reasons:

  • Quality assurance
    • Removal of duplicates or incorrect entries;
    • Correction of typos and translation errors;
    • Harmonization of terminology and style;
  • Increasing efficiency
    • Cleaning up of outdated or irrelevant segments;
    • Merging multiple TMs for a better reuse rate;
    • Reducing inconsistencies to get better matches:
  • Memory optimization
    • Reducing TM size to reduce loading times;
    • Removing unnecessary variants of the same translation.

In short: Regular TM maintenance saves time, improves translation quality and ensures consistent results in CAT tools.


Overview

TM Maintenance is accessed via the corresponding tab in translate5 and opens in a new tab/window. This view is divided into:

  1. The selection of the translation memory that needs editing.
  2. Search fields for source and/or target language content.
  3. A search limitation for the source and/or target language variant of the TM segments.
  4. A search limitation for the author of the TM segments.
  5. A search limitation for the document name.
  6. A drop-down to change the interface language.
  7. The search button.
  8. The “delete all” button.
  9. A search limitation for the TM segments’ creation date.
  10. The “Create” button.
  11. The TM segment list with the search results.



Rights

Whether a user has access to the Translation memory maintenance can be set in the user administration.

Selecting a translation memory for maintenance

By clicking on the icon, a window appears that lists all translation memories available in translate5 with the name, the language combination and the name of the client(s) for whom they have been activated. This list can also be filtered.

Use the “Select” button in the far right column to select the translation memory to be edited.


Currently, one translation memory at a time can be selected for editing.

Search fields for source and target language content

Enter the content that you would like to search in the TM into these fields. Note that you can search content:

  • only in the source language;
  • only in the target language;
  • or in the source and the target language simultaneously.

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Both search fields come with the following two options:

  • Contains: With this option, the text entered is interpreted as part of the segments to be found.
    If you enter “translation”, for example, TM segments such as “Machine translation”, “Human translation” or “I would like to order a translation” can be found with this option.
  • Match full segment: With this option, only absolute matches between the text entered and the TM segment content are taken into account.
    If you enter “translation”, only those segments are found that also only contain the word “translation”.


Search limitation by source and/or target language variant

For multilingual translation memories, i.e. those with more than one source and/or target language, these two search fields can be used to limit the TM segments that will be searched to a source and/or target language variant.


Search limitation by author

This search field can be used to limit the search to TM segments that have been created/edited by a specific author. This search field has two options:

  • Contains: With this option, the text entered is interpreted as part of the segments’ author name.
    For example, you will also find segments created/edited by “Herbert” and “Adalbert” if you search for “bert”.
  • Exact match: With this option, only absolute matches between the entered text and the author name are taken into account.
    In this case, only those TM segments created/edited by the author “Bert” will be found when searching with “bert”.


Search limitation by document name

This search field can be used to limit the search to TM segments that come from a specific document, via that document’s name. This search field has two options:

  • Contains: With this option, the text entered is interpreted as part of the document name. For example, the document names “annual report”, “half-year report” or “quarterly report” will be found with “report”.
  • Exact match: With this option, only absolute matches between the entered text and the document name are taken into account. In this case, “report” only finds those TM segments for which the document name “report” is stored.


“Delete all” button

Click on this button to delete all TM segments that show up as search results.

After clicking on the button, a window appears in which the deletion of the segments must be confirmed again or the process can alternatively be cancelled.


The button is greyed out by default and only becomes active/usable when there are at least 20 TM segment hits. After such a mass deletion, a TM reorganization takes place, which may take a few minutes during which the TM is not available/editable.

Search limitation by creation date

These search fields can be used to limit the search to TM segments that were created before or after a certain date. The search field “Creation date before” or “Creation date after” can be used as required. However, you can also use both fields in combination if the search is to be limited to a period of time.

The date can either be selected from the calendar that opens when you click on the icon. Use the single arrow to jump forward or backward by one month; use the double arrow to jump forward or backward by one year. Or you can enter the date directly in the format MM/DD/YYYY.


The creation date can only be narrowed down by date, not by creation time.


“Create” button

If you click on this button, a window appears in which a new TM segment can be added to the currently selected TM.


This button, which appears in various TM Maintenance windows, can be used to change the size and format of the window. See also: Buttons and icons.


TM segment list

Columns in the segment list

ColumnExplanation
#This column displays the number of the respective TM segment in the order in which it was found in the current search.
IDThe ID of the TM segment is displayed in this column.
Internal keyThis column shows the memory position of the TM segment in the B-tree index structure of t5memory. This information is usually only relevant for technical matters.
Source textThe source language content of the respective TM segment is displayed in this column.
Target textThe target language content of the respective TM segment is displayed in this column.

Actions

This column contains the options that are available for editing the respective TM segment:

Deletes the respective TM segment.

Opens the source-language part of the segment for editing.

Opens the target language part of the segment for editing.

Source languageThe source language variant is displayed in this column.
Target languageThe target language variant is displayed in this column.
AuthorThe name of the user who created/edited the TM segment is displayed in this column.
Creation dateThis column shows the date and time when the TM segment was created or last edited in TM maintenance.
DocumentThis column displays the name of the document from which the respective TM segment originates.
Additional infoThis column is currently not in use.

The order of the columns can be adjusted by dragging and dropping the column header cell of the respective column to the desired position. See also: Columns in list views.

Searching a translation memory

To search the selected translation memory, enter several words or entire sentences you are looking for in the search field for the source and/or target language and click on the “Search” button (or press the ENTER key).

If required, the search can be limited to segments that were created:

After the search, the TM segments that match the search are displayed in the TM segment list. The search strings entered are highlighted in yellow in the segments found.

The blue line above the TM segment list indicates how many segments were found in the active search.

No search results

In cases where none of the TM segments match the search, the text “Total found segments: 0” is displayed in the blue line above the TM segment list.

To find out how many segments a translation memory contains, the search can be started without entering anything in the search fields. This loads the entire translation memory (can take several minutes depending on the size of the translation memory) and the total number of segments is displayed in the blue line above the TM segment list.

Editing TM segments

If a TM segment is open for editing, the following buttons appear in the “Actions” column:

ButtonKeyboard shortcutExplanation

CTRL + SSaves the TM segment.

ESCCancels processing and closes the segment. Changes to the segment are not saved.

CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + ENTERSaves the current segment, closes it, and opens the next preceding editable segment.

CTRL + ALT + ENTERSaves the current segment, closes it, and opens the next editable segment.

CTRL + ALT + UP (up arrow key)Cancels processing, closes the segment and opens the next preceding editable segment.

CTRL + ALT + DOWN (down arrow key)

Cancels editing, closes the segment and opens the next editable segment.


The source and target language segments are opened for editing using two different buttons.

Segments that are edited in Translation memory maintenance are given the current date and time as the “Creation date” and the editing user is stored in the “Author” field.

Segments that are added in the Translation memory maintenance are given the current date and time as the “Creation date” and the editing user is stored in the “Creator” field, “TM Maintenance” is stored as document name.