Hi Georgy Shcherbakov

Do you have 'Enable merging segments across paragraph' ticked in your Project Settings?

Also, have you checked that the segments you're unable to merge have no content between them that will prevent merging? You may be able to see this by selecting the 'All Content' display filter here in the Advanced Filter:

or here in the Review toolbar filter:

And/or, if you received a PDF with the translation job, you can check that to find out if there is anything present that isn't in the SDLXLIFF content, for example if the segments are in different sections or on different pages or separated by some other content that has been set as non-translatable.

I hope this helps - sorry if I'm telling you something you already know...!

All the best

Ali

Hi Georgy Shcherbakov

Re "Of course I've enabled it - otherwise I wouldn't have been able to merge the paragraphs in the first place."

OK, I just wondered if you knew the difference between simply merging segments and merging paragraphs. Had to rule that out.

I expect Paul Filkin or someone will pick this up now and look into reporting it as a bug.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Ali :)

Hi Georgy,

When you merge two segments across a paragraph break, Studio keeps the paragraph break. In Microsoft Word, for instance, the paragraph break contains formatting information that would be lost if Studio just deleted it.

Studio keeps the paragraph break, but locks it and hides it.

Go to File->Options->Editor->Automation and look for the checkbox at the bottom titled "Hide empty segments that have been merged".

If you uncheck this checkbox, you will be able to see the hidden (empty) paragraph break segment created when you merged the first two segments.

This locked segment is the reason you were unable to merge the third paragraph. You can't merge locked segments, and you would have to merge across this locked hidden segment in order to merge the third paragraph.

If you unlock the empty segment created when you merged the first two paragraphs, then you will be able to merge the third paragraph.

Once you have performed your merge, check this checkbox in the options again so that these segments will disappear (and not bother you during further translation).

With respect to the second paragraph disappearing when you undo the merge, that is a bug. The paragraph is still there, but it is hidden after the undo. If you undo a merge and then uncheck the checkbox indicated above, the hidden paragraph will suddenly appear. If I recall correctly, it remains visible if you then check the options checkbox again. Clearly a bug.

However, the locked (empty) hidden paragraph break segment that is created by a cross-paragraph merge is not a bug. As a user, you are simply expected to know about it, just like many other problems in Studio.

When merging across paragraph breaks was first introduced into Studio, I could foresee exactly this problem and suggested that the merge algorithm be changed so that Studio could merge across these special locked hidden segments without users needing to know about the hidden segments, know how change the options to unhide them, unlock them, do the merge, and change the options back to hide these segments again.

After all, the fact that Studio has a checkbox to hide/unhide these special segments means that Studio can identify them. The merge algorithm would just have to be changed to check for these locked hidden empty segments when doing a merge.

Should this be changed. Yes.

Will it be changed. Probably not.

SDL does not have the resources needed to handle many more serious bugs in Studio -- so I can't see them diverting resources to handle a problem that affects a relatively small percentage of users, most of whom probably don't complain like you did, but instead just scratch their heads and give up after trying to figure out what is happening.

You can post it as an "idea", but I wouldn't hold my breath. Although "ideas" are sometimes implemented, I think the "idea" posts mainly benefit SDL by giving frustrated users a bit of hope, so they don't complain so much.

Is information about the locked hidden segments in the Studio documentation somewhere? Probably.

But your best bet for keeping track of Studio problems is to systematically read posts like this in the SDL Community.

If I remember correctly, this problem has already been raised and answered several times, possibly in the previous forum.

And it will probably come up again in the future, raised by a new user or someone who just started following Community discussions. 

I hope you understand what was happening now ...

Best regards,
Bruce Campbell
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