Joining source + target sentences that are not immediately above/below each other in MemoQ?
Thread poster: FreelanceBass
FreelanceBass
FreelanceBass
United States
Local time: 19:31
Japanese to English
Jun 7, 2017

(Foreword: I am completely new to MemoQ)

I'm working with an Excel document in which a number of the source phrases are, for some reason, separated by more than one segment when imported into MemoQ. So I am continually running into fragmented phrases which are not easily joinable as they are not close to each other - even though they are right above/below each other in the original Excel document!

Example:

#1: Then Bobby and I ran

#2: Unrelated
... See more
(Foreword: I am completely new to MemoQ)

I'm working with an Excel document in which a number of the source phrases are, for some reason, separated by more than one segment when imported into MemoQ. So I am continually running into fragmented phrases which are not easily joinable as they are not close to each other - even though they are right above/below each other in the original Excel document!

Example:

#1: Then Bobby and I ran

#2: Unrelated

#3: Unrelated....


......#12 : To the store

This is wasting an inordinate amount of time as I have to seek out the matching segments for each phrase in order to translate them (plus, sometimes the segments are broken up into three or four pieces). And this isn't a one-off; I keep running into this issue. I also don't know how to join these segments when they are separated like this, which doesn't help any.

Can someone please explain to me how to fix the formatting for documents like this so that the order is a bit more proper? Or can anyone at least tell me how to join fragments which are not close to each other when imported into MemoQ? I get the feeling this is not normal... but again, this is my first time working with this program so I can't be sure. (I must say that whoever did the original Excel formatting did not do a top-notch job in the first place).

Thanks in advance.
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Stanislav Okhvat
Stanislav Okhvat
Local time: 03:31
English to Russian
Re: Joining source + target sentences that are not immediately above/below each other in MemoQ? Jun 8, 2017

Hello,

Usually, this problem occurs because the author of the document entered pieces of a single sentence into different cells. By default, when you import an Excel spreadsheet in memoQ, memoQ imports text using "left-to-right, top-down order".

Let's say you have the following spreadsheet:

------------ | Column A -------------- | Column B
row 1 ----- | Then Bobby and I ran -| Unrelated
row 2 ----- | to the store ------------ | Unrelated
<
... See more
Hello,

Usually, this problem occurs because the author of the document entered pieces of a single sentence into different cells. By default, when you import an Excel spreadsheet in memoQ, memoQ imports text using "left-to-right, top-down order".

Let's say you have the following spreadsheet:

------------ | Column A -------------- | Column B
row 1 ----- | Then Bobby and I ran -| Unrelated
row 2 ----- | to the store ------------ | Unrelated

With default order, cell A1 will be in segment 1, cell B1 - in segment 2, and cell A2 - in segment 3. This means that the text from A1 will be separated from the text in A2 by one unrelated segment.

You can change the order to "top-down, left-to-right" so that memoQ imports all rows from column A, then all rows from column B, etc. To do this:
1) use Import with Options... command and select the Excel file.
2) In Document Import Options dialogue, click Change Filter and Configuration link.
3) Change Direction of Linearization option to "Top-down and left-to-right".
4) Press OK.

Of course, the above will not always work because for certain documents the natural text flow is from left to right, then from top to bottom, and sometimes a sentence will even be split into several columns, not several rows. For this reason I prefer to merge cells containing the same sentence before I import the document into memoQ. There is a free tool called Merge Cell Contents which merges cells, combining their textual contents. It is part of TransTools for Excel add-in which works from inside Microsoft Excel. Once you merge all the cell ranges that contain the same sentence, you import the document into memoQ and take it from there.

Best regards,
Stanislav Okhvat
TransTools – Useful tools for every translator
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Philippe Etienne
Philippe Etienne  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:31
Member
English to French
Redundant Jun 8, 2017

Edit: One of the bad things of being a paying member is that you sometimes look stupid when non-paying members have their posts vetted long after yours is published with a similar solution to an issue.

Philippe

[Edited at 2017-06-08 10:05 GMT]


 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 00:31
Member
English to Italian
Ask the client Jun 8, 2017

FreelanceBass wrote:

Can someone please explain to me how to fix the formatting for documents like this so that the order is a bit more proper? Or can anyone at least tell me how to join fragments which are not close to each other when imported into MemoQ? I get the feeling this is not normal... but again, this is my first time working with this program so I can't be sure. (I must say that whoever did the original Excel formatting did not do a top-notch job in the first place).


Before "rearranging" the source, I would ask the client, because there could be a valid reason why it is the way it is (e.g. if those were localization strings, changing their order might very well "break" something and make the output unusable).

As for merging non-adjacent segments in CAT tools, I'm not sure that's possible. If you merge adjacent segments, you create a simple and localized change in segmentation, bu if you merge non-adjacent segment, the entire structure of the file would change (e.g. A-D-C-B would become AB-CD-0-0).

Finally, if you don't have some sort of sequential ID for each individual segment, I don't see how you could rearrange them without having to do it manually.


 
Philippe Etienne
Philippe Etienne  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:31
Member
English to French
Another tip Jun 8, 2017

Since the issue is that MemoQ reads row by row and not column by column, another way of looking at it would be to "transpose" the Excel table (I think there's such feature in Excel):

Example:
1 2 3 4 5 6
a b c d e f
You want to link 1 and a but your MemoQ grid is 1 2 3 4 5 6 a b c d e f

After transpose:
1 a
2 b
3 c
4 d
5 e
6 f

You will have "1 a" as 2 strings next to each other, hence a com
... See more
Since the issue is that MemoQ reads row by row and not column by column, another way of looking at it would be to "transpose" the Excel table (I think there's such feature in Excel):

Example:
1 2 3 4 5 6
a b c d e f
You want to link 1 and a but your MemoQ grid is 1 2 3 4 5 6 a b c d e f

After transpose:
1 a
2 b
3 c
4 d
5 e
6 f

You will have "1 a" as 2 strings next to each other, hence a complete sentence.
After translation, you transpose again to get back to the original layout.

Philippe
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Joining source + target sentences that are not immediately above/below each other in MemoQ?






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