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Microsoft Word – side by side translation
In this video you will learn
– What is side by side translation
– When and why it can be a good choice
– How to make this possible in Word
– How to do it smartly
Side by side translation
What does it mean?
It is very simple. We talk about side-by-side translation, when we have the source text on the left and we put the translation next to it, on the right.
When can it be a good choice?
If you don't use any CAT tools and need to translate a Word document, which isn't too complex, side-by-side translation may be the ideal solution.
The source text on the left remains visible at all times, and the translated text appears on the right, easy to compare with the source text and correct if necessary, whenever you want.
Side-by-side translation in Word
How to make this possible
If you want to translate side by side in Word, use two-column tables. The first column is for the source text and the second column is for the translation.
You can do this by converting the original source text into a table.
Select the source text you want to convert and press the Insert Table menu command Convert Text to Table. Then press the OK button. You now have a one-column table.
After that, you can easily add a second column by copying the existing column or inserting a new one.
And There you go.
Almost.
How to do it smartly
The problem is that in this case each table cell can contain several sentences. It would be better if each cell contained only one sentence.
For two reasons.
First of all, it's just about comfort, but also about precision and quality when you translate. It's just better to see and translate all the sentences separately.
Second, if you divide the text into sentences and it will be translated that way, you can reuse the translation you have done in the future, with any CAT tool of your choice. It's a very big adventure.
So, how to do it?
Microsoft Word converts text to a table using the character of your choice. By default, this is a paragraph mark. When you convert text containing 4 paragraph marks, Microsoft Word will transform it into a table of 4 cells, actually 4 rows, each containing 1 paragraph.
What can I do to get a table with cells containing simple sentences?
You must separate sentences with paragraph marks.
Most sentences end with periods, question marks, and exclamation points. The easiest way would be to add, directly after them, paragraph marks which would be used by Microsoft Word to convert the text into a table.
But there is another problem. If the text already contains paragraph marks, sometimes several together, we cannot simply add new paragraph marks there, because in doing so we are changing the structure of the text.
Later, when we convert the translated table back to text, we will not be able to recover the original paragraph structure.
This all sounds a bit difficult, but it's not.
If we want to keep the original text structure, we need to make some changes before converting and after.
Let's see how it works!
Run Find and Replace command – keyboard shortcut CtrlH.
In the first field, enter:
. (period) and caret p symbol for paragraph mark
in the second field:
. (period) and twice pp for two paragraph marks
and press the Replace All button.
Now run the Find and Replace function again and do the same
for the exclamation mark then for the question mark.
Then you have to change
. (period) and a space in . (period) and p for a paragraph mark
and then the same for exclamation and question marks.
Select the entire text using the CtrlA keyboard shortcut and run the Insert Table menu command Convert text to table.
If you want to translate the text by overwriting it, select and copy the source column and paste it as second – for the translated text.
Finally, right-click the table and run AutoFit AutoFit to Window.
And There you go ! You can translate the text in the right column, sentence by sentence.
Once the translation is complete, delete the source column. Select it with the left mouse button, press the right mouse button and run Delete Columns.
We now only have one column with the translation. Select it and run the Page Setup menu command Convert to Text.
After that we change with the Find and Replace command:
. (period) and p for the paragraph mark in . (period) and space character.
We do the same thing for the question mark and the exclamation point.
And the last change: the space character and the paragraph mark in paragraph mark.
That's it!
This way we have the translation ready after a side-by-side translation in Word with the same text structure as the original text.
https://slavis.net/en/ninja
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