Solution

When to use the Leverage Expert.

You should use the Leverage expert when you have new source files for the project you are localizing. You currently have a *.ttk file (TTK) containing your translated files and you have new versions of those files. The leverage expert will allow you to automatically apply all existing translations to your new files inserted in a new TTK. Furthermore, the leverage expert will, when applicable, allow you to automatically transfer metadata including Coordinates, Locks, Memos and Signed off statuses.

On receiving your new source files, you create a new TTK and insert the files into a new project, setting the required Source and Target languages.

Using Tools menu > Options > Leverage Expert you will launch the Leverage Expert and point to the previous translated TTK containing the old version of the files.

The Leverage Expert contains a wide a range of options. The screenshot below shows the range of options available when using the Leverage Expert.

The leverage expert will use the individual unique ID of each localisable string and can thus accurately apply (or leverage) the translation as well as the metadata associated (coordinates, memos, locks and Signed off statuses) if the string in the new source file is the same.

 

When to use Alignment

You should use the alignment function when you do not have any previous Translation Memory TTK but you have previous equivalent (same code level) source and target files. This will allow you to build a Translation Memory which can then be used to leverage translations into your translation projects. It is not a means to update your TTK files when you have new project source files. It is normally used the first time you use Catalyst on an already translated project and will most likely be a once off task.

For example, you have a source file in English (United States) file1.dll and you have the same file already translated in Spanish (Spain) file1.dll. Those 2 files are the same version. In this case, you can align the English file1.dll with the Spanish file1.dll and create a Translation Memory (or TTK file) which can be used as a TM by the Leverage expert. Even the coordinates in the dialogs will be aligned.

The alignment is done automatically (by default) or can be done Interactively for HTML and XML files only. To turn the interactive alignment on, go to Tools > Options > Application > Alignment

Using the interactive alignment will allow you to overcome small discrepancies between the Source and Translated file as you can specifically instruct Catalyst to link one or more source string with one or more translated string.

If the differences are too great between the Source and Target files, for example if they are not the same code base, the alignment results will be greatly affected.

 

 

Products or Versions Affected

  • Alchemy CATALYST 8.0 and higher

 

Article last updated with Catalyst 9.0