memoQ masterclass by Angelika Zerfass, part 3

memoQ term bases

After the lunch break, the structure of memoQ term base entries was discussed. Angelika explained the import mappings for CSV files.

One trick for importing term bases in the fastest way possible: if you work frequently with one language pair and always use the same term base structure, export a sample term base from memoQ and delete all the content except the rows containing the headings. Then use this CSV template every time by pasting your contents under the column headings. When you have to import the resulting term base into memoQ, you will not need to do any mapping, because the column headings will be correctly accepted and configured by memoQ.

In the current version of memoQ, only 5-6 hard-coded fields are available. While this is probably enough for most translators, organizations that have terminology management systems feel the limitation of this setup. That’s why Kilgray will introduce a brand-new terminology system that will contain custom fields and complex structures.

Terminology plug-ins

memoQ 4.2 offers terminology plug-ins. One example is the EuroTermBank: if you start a term lookup (ctrl-P) , you can type a term search and specify to search the term not only in the normal memoQ term bases, but also in the online EuroTermBank database. Kilgray is part of the EuroTermBank consortium and can offer this feature to all its users for free. Needless to say, you need to be online in order to use this plug-in.

Two-column RTF export

Balázs Kis then proceeded to show the brand-new functionality called two-column RTF export. In the presentation, Balázs added a couple of comments to some segments, created a view that only included commented segments, and proceeded to export the view as a two-column RTF file. He then opened the resulting file in Word. The resulting file is a multi-column, editable file that a reviewer can use even if she does not have memoQ. The third column contains a color-coded value of the segment status. The general comment in the room was “this is better implemented than in Déja Vu”, “great!”. There was even some applause! You could really tell that this was a long-awaited feature.