Translation for 3.0

This page summarizes useful information on the localization work needed for the OpenOffice.org 3.0 version.

Translation Schedule

January 30th - Translation start date
April 3rd - Translation delivery date

Total Estimated Translation Volume

GUI approx. 80,000 words
Help approx. 425,000 words

New/Changed Estimated Translation Volume since 2.4

GUI approx. 2,000 words
Help approx. 30,000 words

Release Map

Release map with translation deadlines specific for the 3.0 release can be found at: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OOoRelease30.

Translation Schedule for Pootle Users

January 30th - Translation start date February 19th - Translators upload all complete translated files to Pootle and stop translating February 20th - Pootle admistrators update Pootle with new content February 21st - Translators can start translating again March 12th - Translators upload all complete translated files and stop translating March 13th - Pootle admistrators update Pootle with new content March 14th - Translators can start translating again April 3rd - Final translation delivery date

New/Changed Translation Volume - 1st hanover

GUI approx. 200 words
Help approx. 18,000 words

New/Changed Translation Volume - 2nd hanover

Help approx. 5,800 words

New/Changed Translation Volume - 3rd hanover

TBD

Translating with Pootle

• Pootle administrators make sure Pootle content is updated according to translation schedule
• L10n lead give the Go to start translation on Pootle (announcement to the dev@l10n list)
• Native Language leads make translation assignments following the Pootle User's Guide
• Translation teams work with Language team to make sure the translation is reviewed
• Native Language/translation leads make sure translation is complete within the deadlines
• Native Language/translation leads communicate translation completion to l10n lead
• Pootle administrator downloads the translated files and provide them to release engineering

It is recommended to use Pootle to manage the translation process and assignments. For translation it is recommended to download the files and translate them with a translation editor which support translation memory functionality. Linguistic review can be then performed right after translation. It is recommended to use the online translation editor for corrections and for small translation volume only.

Teams translating with Pootle

More and more teams are using Pootle on the sunvirtuallab to translate. Here the complete list.

Tips and Tools

Team

build a team of translators and 1-2 reviewers to work on the project. I recommend to keep the number of the reviewers to 1-2 people, since the more translators and reviewers working on the project, the less you can ensure quality and consistency.

Glossary

SunGloss (https://g11nportal.sun.com/sungloss) is the repository of the latest terminology used in the StarOffice/OpenOffice.org product. You can request access to consult the tool. We recommend to use SunGloss instead of a spreadsheet because it shows all entries (including deleted entries that were used but not anymore). In this way it's possible for all to look at the evolution of a translation, and discuss about it when it's needed, especially during the review process.

Translation Memories

Latest TMX files can be found at: http://ooo.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/cws/upload/localization/tmx24/

TMX can also be created as follows:

• download po files from Pootle
• run po2tmx

For more information please refer to below page for how to create TM: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Pootle_Glossary_Guide#Translation_Memory_in_Pootle

SDF to PO Convertion Tools

The .sdf file can be converted to .po files using the oo2po tool and converted back to .sdf format using the po2oo tool from the Translate Toolkit package: http://translate.sourceforge.net/

Documentation with examples for conversion and backconversion can be found at: http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/toolkit/oo2po

PO files provided on the Pootle deployment for OpenOffice.org handle duplicate messages using KDE style (oo2po --duplicates=msgid_comment). For more information see here : http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/toolkit/duplicates_duplicatestyle

It is important that if you are uploading and merging batches of PO content to the Pootle server that your content conforms to this style, otherwise it may not merge correctly with the content already present on the server.

Gsicheck Tool

gsicheck to make sure the translated .sdf files are not corrupted can be found at: http://ooo.services.openoffice.org/gsicheck/

Translation Editors

The most used translation editors supporting the .po file format are:

• http://www.poedit.net/
• http://kbabel.kde.org/
• http://gtranslator.sourceforge.net/

poEdit runs both on Windows and Linux. Kbabel runs on Linux only but it seems to be more professional. Please add further information on these and other tools that may help other translators to perform their job.

Roles and Responsibilities

Language	N-L Lead main contact(s)	Language Lead	Central Engineer(s)	Project Lead	Other
Brazilian Portuguese	Olivier Halllot Claudio Filho	Augusta Marques Da Silva	Petr Dudacek	Rafaella Braconi
Dutch	Arthur Buijs	Natalie Koning	Petr Dudacek	Rafaella Braconi
French	Sophie Gautier	Elsa Blume	Petr Dudacek	Rafaella Braconi
German	Jacqueline Rahemipour Marko Moeller	Berit Bonde	Petr Dudacek	Rafaella Braconi
Italian	Andrea Pescetti Alessandro Cattelan	Monica Badia	Petr Dudacek	Rafaella Braconi
Russian	Rail Aliev	TBD	Petr Dudacek	Rafaella Braconi
Spanish	Santiago Bosio Alexandro Colorado	Aridane Vilardane-Viegra	Petr Dudacek	Rafaella Braconi
Swedish	Lars D. Noodén Erik Magnus Johansson	Sofia Nilsson	Petr Dudacek	Rafaella Braconi
Simplified Chinese	Lin Cheng	Joy Zhang	Aijin Kim	Rafaella Braconi
Korean	Jeongkyu Kim	Joy Zhang	Aijin Kim	Rafaella Braconi
Japanese	Maho Nakata Kazunari Hirano	Reiko Saito	Naoyuki Ishimura	Rafaella Braconi

Q & A

This session will be filled in with Q & As which will be raised and answered during the translation initiative

Q: Is there any tool which can convert automatically a two-language text glossary into a PO file, for example the glossary extracted from the SunGloss?
A: Open your text file in OOo Calc as a CSV file and choose "tab" as the delimiter. Save it as a normal CSV file (comma seperated) and then you can convert it to PO using csv2po from the translate toolkit. Here is the documentation for that: http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/toolkit/csv2po. If you still have some issues please note that you need to make a _comma_ separated file. This is the format that the converter is expecting. Does OOo Calc give the option of choosing the delimiter style? Perhaps it is using the tabs because the initial file had them. Then you might need to open the file in a text editor and replace the tabs with commas. Take note of the expected file format that csv2po expects (three columns with source and target in the second and third columns respectively). It might be easiest to ensure that your file has this format, otherwise you will have to specify the format using the --columnorder parameter.

Q: How do I handle translation bugs?
A: Please read the process to follow at: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Handling_Translation_Issues. Also be careful before suggesting major terminology changes and carefully evaluate the impact the change will have. It will cause a major rework since all GUI strings, Online Help as well as all documetation will need to be readapted to the new terminology to make sure that the program is consistent in all its components.

Q: Can I use Pootle to translate the files for the 2.4 update release?
A: Please ask at the dev@l10n list for additional information. Please see details at: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/New_Translation_Process_%28Pootle_server%29

Q: During translation I see many strings already translated which do not match exactly with the English source: shall I leave them as they are or should I change them?
A: The translated strings you see need to be readjusted to reflect the English source. They are most probably translations of previous versions when the English source was different. Whenever an English string gets updated the translation of that string before modification is maintained because in most of the case it contains useful terminology that may be reused for updating the string. Sometimes the changes are really minimal, sometimes it's not the string but the tags in it which have changed or sometimes a typo in the English text has been fixed so that in the end you don't need to change anything in the translated text ... but sometimes you may need to retranslate the string completely.