Hello,

I understand that you're having trouble with dates being displayed as numbers when translating a bilingual Excel file in Trados Studio. This is a known issue related to how Excel stores dates as serial numbers, which Trados Studio interprets as such. However, there's a workaround you can use:

Step 1: Open your Excel file.

Step 2: Select the column that contains the dates.

Step 3: Right-click and select 'Format Cells'.

Step 4: In the 'Number' tab, select 'Text' and click 'OK'. This will change the format of the cells to text, which should prevent Trados Studio from interpreting the dates as numbers.

Step 5: Save your Excel file.

Step 6: Import the Excel file into Trados Studio again.

Please note that this method will change the format of the cells in your Excel file to text, which may affect how you can use these cells in Excel. However, it should allow you to see the dates correctly in Trados Studio.

I hope this helps! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Best regards,

RWS Community AI

I have proceeded according to the six steps.

Step 1: Open your Excel file.

Step 2: Select the column that contains the dates.

Step 3: Right-click and select 'Format Cells'.

Step 4: In the 'Number' tab, select 'Text' and click 'OK'. This will change the format of the cells to text, which should prevent Trados Studio from interpreting the dates as numbers.

Step 5: Save your Excel file.

Step 6: Import the Excel file into Trados Studio again.

However, trados studio still demonstrate the date as numbers when trandos translate bilingual excel. 

Could you let me know the cause of the problem and how to fix it. 

jack zhong 

I have no idea why you have this problem.  I created a quick test file and used General (default) for the cells:

That opens in Trados Studio like this:

I attached my test file for you to test and see how this behaves for you:

dates.zip

Dear Mr. Paul.

Thank you very much, you are always so professional and helpful.

I tested your sample and it worked, and I also found the reason.

I copied the bilingual content from Microsoft word document to excel and caused the problem.

In addition, my intention is to use a bilingual table in the Microsoft word document to quickly convert into the sdltm.

The current process is still very complicated and time-consuming.

1, I copied the bilingual table in word document to a bilingual excel and then import the bilingual excel to trados to create the sdltm; it will word but it also will cause the font of the word to change which will affect the 100% matching in the future.

2, I tried to split the bilingual table to paste it separately into two Microsoft documents to align in trados studio, but trados studio will make the alignment worse

Is it possible that you could make trados studio to align this kind of bilingual word document quickly, better just within one word document, so that I can convert this kind of bilingual table in the word document quickly into sdltm?

 jack zhong 

Perhaps you could make two copies of the Word file. Then hide the source in one and the target in the other, then align them?

Dear Mr pual, 

My previous method is similar to your suggestion, "2, I tried to split the bilingual table to paste it separately into two Microsoft documents to align in trados studio, but trados studio will make the alignment worse"

Besides,during this time, I tried your method to make two copies and hide the source in one and the target in the other, then align them The following is the result: 

The word document was already aligned perfectly in the bilingual table of a  mircrosoft word file. I just want to use trados studio to quickly convert it to trados translation memory sdltm file. It seems that we might need to add the capability or function of trados studio to to this. 

Best regards

Jack

jack zhong 

jack zhong said:

It seems that we might need to add the capability or function of trados studio to to this. 

I don't think this is something we need to make part of the core product, but I'm not the product manager so if you still think so feel free to create an idea for this in the ideas site.

I think you could solve this problem, based on everything you've shared so far (and ignoring anything that might be possible to improve the alignment since what you have shown doesn't mean it's not possible to get a better alignment than you have), by using a powershell script to move the rows in the table as they are already 1:1 into an XLIFF file.  So I created the following:

# Ask for the Word document path
$docFullPath = Read-Host "Please enter the full path to the DOCX file"
if (-Not (Test-Path -Path $docFullPath)) {
    Write-Host "The file path you entered does not exist. Please check the path and try again."
    exit
}

# Prompt for source and target language codes
$sourceLangCode = Read-Host "Enter the source language code (e.g., 'zh-TW')"
$targetLangCode = Read-Host "Enter the target language code (e.g., 'pt-PT')"

# Create the XLIFF file name by changing the DOCX extension to .xliff
$xliffFile = [IO.Path]::ChangeExtension($docFullPath, ".xliff")

# Create a new invisible Word Application object
$wordApp = New-Object -ComObject Word.Application
$wordApp.Visible = $false

function Escape-Xml ($string) {
    $string -replace '&', '&' -replace '<', '<' -replace '>', '>' -replace '"', '"' -replace "'", '''
}

try {
    # Open the Word document
    $document = $wordApp.Documents.Open($docFullPath)
    $table = $document.Tables.Item(1)

    # Start building the XLIFF content
    $xliffContent = @"
<xliff xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:2.0" version="2.0" srcLang="$sourceLangCode" trgLang="$targetLangCode">
<file id="f1" original="word-document">
"@

# Iterate over each row in the table, skipping the header row
for ($i = 2; $i -le $table.Rows.Count; $i++) {
    $sourceText = Escape-Xml ($table.Cell($i, 1).Range.Text -replace "`r`n", "" -replace "`a", "").Trim()
    $targetText = Escape-Xml ($table.Cell($i, 2).Range.Text -replace "`r`n", "" -replace "`a", "").Trim()
    $unitId = "u" + $i
    $xliffContent += "<unit id=`"$unitId`">`r`n  <segment>`r`n    <source>$sourceText</source>`r`n    <target>$targetText</target>`r`n  </segment>`r`n</unit>`r`n"
}

    # Close the XLIFF content
    $xliffContent += @"
</file>
</xliff>
"@

    # Save the XLIFF content to the file
    $xliffContent | Set-Content -Path $xliffFile -Encoding UTF8

    Write-Host "XLIFF 2.0 file has been created at $xliffFile"
}
catch {
    Write-Host "An error occurred: $_"
}
finally {
    # Close the Word document and quit the application
    if ($document) {
        $document.Close($false)
    }
    $wordApp.Quit()

    # Clean up COM objects
    [System.Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($document) | Out-Null
    [System.Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($wordApp) | Out-Null
    [System.GC]::Collect()
    [System.GC]::WaitForPendingFinalizers()
}

And this table:

Which seems to do the trick like this:

Dear Mr. Paul 

Thank you very much.

Best regards

Jack