Empty user-defined TM

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to resolve an enigma (at least to me) related to TM in SDL Trados Studio 2019. I use the trial version (15.0.0.29704), set up a project (let's say in c:\project), create a new TM (c:\project\stuff\foo.sdltm), start to translate and save the translation units. When I check the content of my foo.sdltm, I find that it's completely empty, whereas the TM created by the system (c:\project\TM\es-ES\foo-foo.sdltm) contains all the translation units.
If I recall correctly, 2017 didn't behave like this, at least my foo.sdltm had the same content as my foo-foo.sdltm.
So my questions would be:
1.) Is the SDL Trados 2019 behaviour OK?
2.) If so, is there a way to automatically synchronize foo.sdltm and foo-foo.sdltm?
3.) Is there a way to set up a customized template (or other workaround) to avoid having the system create the TM duplicate in its default directory and to work exclusively with foo.sdltm?

Thanks in advance
Detlef

Paul Filkin · Answer

Hi Detlef Reineke 
 
What you are describing is working wth Project Translation memories and 2017 behaved exactly the same way. You have two ways to create a project... with Project TMs, or without. 
 
If you work with them then the system creates the Project TM in the TM folder of your project and would (if your Main TM was not empty) contain a subset of your TUs that were relevant for the project. Once you had completed the review of your project and were happy with the final version you would run the "Update Main Translation Memory" batch task which would update your Main TM with the content of your approved SDLXLIFF files. 
 
So the Project TM is a sort of scratchpad TM... if you wish to work in that way. If you don't then just don't create the projects with the Project TM option.

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Empty user-defined TM