Pootle User Guide

From Apache OpenOffice Wiki
Revision as of 02:16, 24 December 2008 by Blueice7 (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search

Pootle User Guide for Translators

Localized documents

Registration and login

Fill in your username, password and a valid e-mail address, Click on the 'Register Account' button, and an activation code will be sent to the e-mail address you've provided.

  • Activate account
When you receive the activation code and login, detailed by e-mail, go to the activation page and fill them in. Click on the 'Activate Account' button, and now you can login in Pootle.

Setting user option

If you login for the first time, you need to configure your user option and get proper privileges.

1. Configure user option

  • Click on 'Change options' in 'My account' page which has a link on the right upper side.
  • Select desired projects and languages from lists and save changes. You can select mutiple projects and languages.
  • Now, you can see quick links of the projects of selected languages in 'My account' page.

2. Get proper privileges
The default privilege of login user is 'suggestion', which only allows suggesion, not submission. You need to make sure with your lead if you have a proper privilege before starting work. Your project lead will modify your privileges according to need of the project.

Searching files

There are two ways to reach the files for translation.

  • Once your user page is set up, you can reach the files directly through the links in it.
  • Another way to find the file you wish to translate is through the main page. The main page displays two categories - Languages and Projects. Choosing a language will give you the list of projects available for translation into this language; choosing a project will give you the list of languages which can be translated for the project. Once you have chosen both the project and the language, you'll be presented with the files available for translation.

When you get the translation page, you'll see a two-column table, with the strings to be translated on the left, and the current translation on the right. The current edited entry appears as a text box with the options 'Skip' and 'Suggest' or 'Submit' below it. Naturally you can enter text in the text box and submit it or skip to the next entry.

If you want to jump to another entry, you can get there by selecting the row you want. You can see the 'Edit' link next to the column of the current translation.

Note: Only if you have the 'translate' privilege, you can see the 'submit' button. Usually the default privilege of logged-in users is 'suggest'. If you can't see 'submit' button, please ask your translation lead to set the proper permission for you.

Translating with Pootle

Each file available for translation is accessible in two ways - 'Quick Translate' and 'Translate All'. 'Quick Translate' shows only the fuzzy and untranslated entries, while 'Translate All' shows all the entries in the file regardless of translated status.

  • Select a project you want.
  • Click on 'Show Editing Functions' on the top navigation bar.
  • You can see all the files listed.
  • Click on 'Quick Translate' or 'Translate All' from the top navigation bar or each file/folder.


If specific tasks are assigned to you, you can see the strings which are only assigned to you.

  • Select a project you want.
  • Click on 'Show Editing Functions' on the top navigation bar.
  • You can see the '(Quick)Translate My Strings' links of the files(or folders) which you're assigned to are active.
  • Click on '(Quick)Translate My Strings' for the file(or folder) you want to work. It'll show you the strings which are assigned to you.

Note: Before starting to translate, you should make sure that you have proper permission of the projects. If you don't have permissions to submit, please ask your language lead to give you the permission.

Translating off-line

If you want to translate off-line than on Pootle, you need to download files and upload translated files back to Pootle.

1. Download files

You can download files by file, folder or goal.

  • Select a project you want or a folder which you want to download.
  • Click on 'Show Editing Functions' on the top navigation bar.
  • If you want to download all the files in the current folder, Click on 'ZIP of folder' on the top navigation bar.
  • If you want to download a specific file in the current folder, click on the 'PO file' of the file, and and save it locally.
  • If you're working with a goal and want to download only the files of the goal, select 'Show Editing Functions-Show Goals'. Then you can see a goal list and 'ZIP of goal' link for each goal.

Note: You need to make sure that you have 'archive' privilege for zip downloading. If you don't have proper privilege, please ask your translation lead to set the privilege for you.
Note: Currently, the function to download only the files which are assigned to you is not supported.

2. Work off-line
You can work with a preferred editor. Most commonly used editors by community are:

If you want to work with only fuzzy/untranslated strings, an extra step is needed to filter those strings from downloaded po file.

  • Run pofilter which is a part of Translate Toolkit. You can download Translate Toolkit from here
    • pofilter -t isfuzzy -t untranslated <input file> <filtered file>

This will extract all strings which are fuzzy or untranslated.
Once you finish working in filtered po file, you can merge it back into the original file using pomerge before uploading to Pootle.

3. Upload translated files
Once translation is completed, you need to upload your work to Pootle.
If you have 'translate' privilege, you can see the 'Upload File' button on the right side of the web page.

There are two options of upload.

  • merge :
Default option for user who has 'translate' privilege. Previously untranslated strings are submitted and the modifications of already translated strings are marked as 'suggestion', which means they need a review before submission. If you make some modifications to existing translations (e.g., bug fixing), please make sure that they are reviewed and accepted by reviewer. Unless, the modifications won't be applied.

Note: If you choose 'merge' option, it may take long time as Pootle will compare every string one by one. The best way could be to have all necessary work(translation,review,fix and merging) done before uploading and simply choose 'overwrite'.

  • overwrite :
User who has 'overwrite' privilege can select between overwrite and merge options. The uploaded file overwrite the existing file on Pootle. This option should be carefully used as it has possibility to loose existing data. If you make sure all the contents of your file are valid, you can choose 'overwrite' option for quick upload.

Note: During uploading, you should make sure that you're located in the right folder. You should upload a po file or a ZIP file in the same folder that you downloaded it from.If you upload a file to a wrong location, please contact Pootle admin.

Verification checks

Pootle provides an error checking feature, which runs a series of checks on the translations and find out possible errors.

  • Select a project, folder or goal you want to check.
  • Click on 'Show Editing Functions-Show checks'. (You can see 'Show checks' link if you have 'translate' privilege.)
  • It shows a list of possible errors and statistics.
  • Check and if needed fix the filtered erroneous strings found in the following categories:
    • variables
    • xmltags
    • escapes

There are currently 45 check cases. Please see here for more detail.

Headline text

Using glossary in Pootle

Translators can work with terminoloy or TM(Translation Memory) in Pootle.
Please see how to use glossary for more detail.


Pootle Userguide for Reviewers

How to review

Usually, translation lead has the right of review. However, having a dedicated reviewer would be also helpful for your project.
If you have 'review' privilege, you're able to accept or reject suggestions from translators.

  • Select a project, a specific folder or file you want.
  • Click on 'Show Editing Functions'
  • Click on 'Show Suggestions'
  • It shows the strings with suggested translation one by one.
  • Review the suggested string and accpet or reject. If the suggestion is accepted, it is submitted. If it is rejected, existing translation has no change.
  • Click 'Skip' button for next string.

Note: Please remember that pending translation can't be applied. You should accept it if the suggestion is valid.


Pootle Userguide for Translation Leads

Registration and getting administrator privilege

Please refer to the user guide for translator.

  • Configure user option. - Please refer to the user guide for translator.
  • Send a mail to the L10n dev mailing list with the project and language which you'll manage. Then Pootle admin will give you an administrative privilege for the project.

Once all the work is done by Pootle admin, you can see 'Administrative' link beside your project in 'My account' page.

Setting permissions for users

To allow translators to participate in the project, you need to give them proper permissions. You should make sure that the user who you want to give a permission to has configured his/her user option selecting the project and language before your work.

  • Choose the 'Administrative' link of your project in 'My account' page.
  • Select the user who you want to add from a drop-down list and give him/her proper rights. Usually, you need to give 'Translate' right besides default values.

In the page, the current rights are listed as they are assigned. The user 'nobody' refers to any user that is not logged in (an anonymous, unidentified user). The user 'default' refers to the rights that all logged in users who are not specified.

For more detail about each permission, please see here.

Assigning work to translators

1. Create goals
For assignment, you need to create one of more goals first.

  • Select the project you have administrator privilege.
  • Click 'Show Editing Functions' on the the top navigation bar.
  • Click 'Show Goals'.
  • Create a goal by entering the name of a new goal on the right hand side of the page. After you click 'Add Goal' button, you can see the new goal is in the list.

If you already have goals to be used, you can skip the above steps.

2. Include selected files into the goal
All the files are under 'Not in a goal' by default. You need to move the files which you want to add to the new goal.

  • Select 'Not in a goal' - You can see all the files which aren't included in any goal.
  • Select the goal from the drop-down list for the files you want and click 'Set Goal' button.
  • Go back to the project page which lists all the goals and select the new goal.
  • Check if all the files that will be part of this goal are listed inside the page.

3. Add user to the project
You can add users who will work on the goal.

  • In the page of the goal, select user from the drop-down list and click 'Add User' button.

Note: You should make sure that the users you want to add has configured their language and project setting. Otherwise, you can't see the user from the list.

4. Assign work to translators
Now you can see the 'Assign To' button for each file in the goal. Each file can be assigned to one or more users.

  • Assigning a file to one user
Selecte an user and strings to be assigned from the drop-down lists and click 'Assign To' button.
  • Assigning a file to multiple users
Click on 'Select multiple' next to the user selection list for the file you want to assign. The dropdown list will now become a list where you can select multiple people (usually by holding down shift or control while selecting).

Selecte users and strings to be assigned from the drop-down lists and click 'Assign To' button.

Checking assignments

Once you've assigned tasks to translators, you can see the status of assignment and translation.

  • Click on 'Show Editing Functions-Show Goals-Show Assignments' on the the top navigation bar.
  • You can see the status of each goal.
  • Select a goal you want.
  • You can see the assigned user for each folder or file.

Note: Currently, the function to view by user is not supported.


Suggested work-flow

Off-line translation

1. Download zip files from Pootle.
2. Filter untranslated/fuzzy from the po files by pofilter.
3. Translate the generated file which include only untranslated and fuzzy.
4. Review the file.
5. Implement the changes to the file off-line.
6. Merge the updated untranslated/fuzzy (which are now translated!) to the original by pomerge.
7. Upload the merged po files to Pootle with Overwrite.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.openoffice.org/w/index.php?title=Pootle_User_Guide&oldid=105614"
Personal tools
In other languages