CafeTran

 For some reasons, you may want to remove all tags from SDL Trados Studio files (.sdlxliff) and work with tag-free, clean texts.

In my case, I'm not required to deal with tags under my contract with the client who sends me Trados projects (i.e., post-editing including tag placement and formatting is their job, not mine).

CT can let users to ignore tags while translating (Action > Tags > Automatic transfer of remaining tags). But, unfortunately, it seems that this feature does not work for segments which begin with a tag or a space(s) and a tag (a tag placement error appears).

I often see segments beginning with spaces and a tag, which together represent an indent in the source document; they are real headaches.

Anyway, I prefer to work with pure text files.

You can remove all tags as follows:

Go to SDL OpenExchange and download SDLXliff2Tmx, a free tool that converts an sdlxliff file into a TMX file.

You can select certain types of segments for exclusion, and remove tags.

Now, open the created TMX ("Trados TM") in CT. Select "Edit TMX memory" on the Dashboard.

When the TM settings screen appears, uncheck "Segments memory" to avoid inadvertent segment additions.

Now, create a new memory for your achival purposes. (For this TM, you'd better check both "Segments memory" and "Fragments memory" on the TM settings screen.)

When translating the Trados TM, be sure not to edit the source segments; otherwise, you will get lower-rate matches which are not recommended for automatic insertion of matches.

Edited sources due to misspelling etc. should be added to your archival TM.

After translation is over, apply the Trados TM in Trados.

A follow-up.

The above-mentioned approach is effective when you want to remove all tags AND exclude certain types of segments.

If you are going to translate all segments, CT already has everything you need to remove tags.

1. Open the sdlxliff file in CT.
2. Create a new TM. Be sure to uncheck "Processing tags": because you are going to remove tags.
3. Go to Task > Transfer source segments to target segments.
4. Click the tab of that new TM.
5. Go to Memory > Import > Import segments from project, and save the memory.
6. Open that memory for translation as described above.
7. Go to Task > Remove target segments, and translate.

 

Why don't you save the sdlxliff as TMX in CT? Isn't that possible? In that case, you can save as HTML and translate the first column.