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Translating in the Short Text EditorLocate this document in the navigation structure

Context

The system opens the short text editor automatically when you call up a short text object for translation. While translating in the short text editor, you can maintain the proposal pool and therefore reuse translations of source texts that have occurred before. The short text editor settings enable you to determine how short text lines are displayed and processed.

Procedure

  1. Call up a short text object for translation.

    If you are translating using a worklist, you can call up short text objects individually by double-clicking them, or you can process all objects of a specific short text object type one after the other by starting sequential processing. You can also call up objects directly in transaction SE63.

  2. Check that the object you have called up is assigned to a two-character domain. This information is included in the title bar.

    For more information on the assignment of collections to a domain, see Creating and Refreshing the Domain Assignment.

  3. Edit the lines to be translated, and maintain the proposal pool if you have decided to use it.

    Depending on the translation status and whether a best proposal or other valid proposals exist for the source text, proceed as follows:

    • If the status of the translation line is new and no best proposal is displayed under the translation line, enter a translation in the translation line and choose Save. Branch to the proposal pool and create a proposal for your translation.

      If you already know that you want to save your translation in the proposal pool as a system standard with quality status S, select the Create System/Status S Immediately Create Proposal Immediately (System Standard with Status S) icon to create the proposal without leaving the short text editor. You require authorization to create proposals with quality status S to use this function. For more information on authorizations, see Translator Profiles.

    • If the status of the translation line is new and a best proposal exists that is a correct translation of your source text, copy this best proposal into the translation line by double-clicking it. If the best proposal is not a correct translation of your source text, branch to the proposal pool to delete the proposal and create a new one.

    • If the status of the translation line is modified and a translation exists that does not agree with the best proposal, you have two options:

      • If the best proposal is the correct translation, copy it to the translation line by double-clicking it.

      • If you want to keep the current translation, branch to the proposal pool to create the correct translation as a new proposal. You can create the new proposal in addition to the existing proposal, or you can delete the existing proposal.

      The Create System Standard with Status S for Modified Lines Create System Standard with Status S for Modified Lines icon in the application toolbar enables you to create all of the translations in all of the modified lines in the object as system standards with quality status S in the proposal pool. For more information on this function, see Functions in the Short Text Editor and read the section Create System Standard With Status S for Modified Lines.

    Note

    When a translation agrees with a valid proposal for a source text, the text line has the status Translated and is highlighted in green. The system assigns the status Modified to all translation lines whose contents do not match valid proposals in the proposal pool. Lines with this status are highlighted in yellow until you perform appropriate activities in the proposal pool. New lines are highlighted in red.

    For the translation of the object in question to be displayed in the system after you have logged on in the translation language, you only have to enter a translation in the translation line and then save. You do not have to maintain the proposal pool if you do not want to. However, you are advised to do so because the proposal pool helps to reduce the manual translation workload in the future while simultaneously ensuring translation consistency.

  4. If you want to enter a comment for a specific short text line, choose Create Comment for Line Create Comment for Line for the line in question. The Comment for Line dialog box enables you to enter several lines of text, change an existing comment, or delete the entire comment. You can create a comment to share important information about the line with other translators. The comment can be displayed by any translator who accesses the object for translation in the short text editor, irrespective of the source and target languages. To display an existing comment, choose Display/Edit Comment for Line Display/Edit Comment for Line for the line in question.
    Note

    The short text editor displays exactly the same comment for all identical instances of the source text in the object. In this context, identical means multiple occurrences of exactly the same source text, with exactly the same maximum field length, in the same short text object.

  5. If you want to set the query flag for a specific short text line, choose Set Query Flag Set Query Flag for the line in question. The icon changes to , which is immediately visible to any translator who accesses the object for translation in the short text editor, irrespective of the source and target languages. You can set the query flag to remind yourself, and to indicate to translators into all other languages, that you have asked a question about the source text. You can only set the query flag if your source language is also the original language of the object and if your translator profile includes authorization object QUER with the value 01.

    Query flags do not prevent lines from being translated. They simply indicate that a question has been asked about the source text, which means that the text might change before the translation deadline if, for example, the developer who wrote it corrects a typing error. If you see an active query flag, you can display its tooltip to find out who set it and when. To delete an active query flag, choose Delete Query Flag Delete Query Flag for the line in question.

    Note The short text editor displays exactly the same query flag for all identical instances of the source text in the object. In this context, identical means multiple occurrences of exactly the same source text, with exactly the same maximum field length, in the same short text object.
  6. Choose Save to save your work.

Next Steps

When all of the texts in the short text object have been translated, you can proceed to the next short text object you need to translate. If you cannot translate all of the texts in the short text object immediately, you can return to the object later.

Example

The graphic contains three examples of texts in the short text editor:

Figure 1: Text Examples in the Short Text Editor
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