Like all databases, translation memory (TM) must be maintained. The following are some of the risks you face if you do not maintain your TM database or files:

• Every time you use the TM, incorrect translations will be repeated, making it necessary to pay for corrections.
• Your TMs may become corrupted and run slowly (or even fail to run at all).
• Translators may have to spend more time on translations simply because the TM data presented to them is incorrect or confusing.

So, what types of corruption can appear in TMs and where do they come from?

• Misalignments can arise when previously translated materials are aligned and not properly checked. Misalignments can include source segments mapping to the wrong target segments, multiple source segments mapping to a single target segment, multiple targets mapping to a single source segment, or any combination of the above.
• Duplicate segments are very common when TMs from multiple projects or sources are merged, or when different translators have worked on a project and translated the same segment in different places.
• Database files can become corrupted and if they are not regularly backed up and checked for corruption, they can suddenly fail to work or can create unexpected errors. While TMs based on "flat" files (like Fortis or Transit) are less likely to encounter these problems, even they can become garbled or create problems if not properly managed.
• Entire database files can be duplicated and modified by different users, leaving no way to tell which file should be used. While good file management practices can prevent this, distributed work environments make this sort of corruption especially likely and problematic.

The best way to prevent problems from occurring is to regularly schedule maintenance. If you wait for a problem to become obvious before you deal with it, chances are the problem has already become very severe. Every project should include TM maintenance as a specified step, and this maintenance should not be put off. Maintenance tasks that take ten minutes when a project is fresh in your mind might take hours a few weeks later when you no longer remember what exactly needed to be done.

Some steps you should take to help keep your TMs in excellent shape are:

1. Make changes to your TM when you discover errors, not later, and establish a procedure for changes to be implemented in the TM. For example, if your DTP staff find an error in a localized file and correct it, they need a way to make sure that the change is made in the TM. Assign ownership of TM maintenance issues to specific individuals for each team, and have these responsible parties report to a single individual who controls the TM
2. Most TMs allow you to merge in new segments returned by your translators rather than accepting their files in their entirety. You should also never allow translators to work directly with your master TM or make copies (other than backups) of the TM. All changes to the TM should be authorized by a single person with responsibility for the TM.
3. Complete as much review as possible on newly translated segments before you merge them with the TM. If changes are made before the segments are merged you are much less likely to have errors in the master TM. Make sure QA is an integral part of your process, not an afterthought
4. If your TM tool has management features, use them!
5. While TM relies on a body of past translations, don't be afraid to phase out files for products or services you no longer offer. It doesn't make sense for a translator to receive fuzzy matches from projects unrelated to the one he or she is working on, particularly if the information is outdated or inaccurate.

Even though it can seem like a hassle and you may be tempted to put it off, TM maintenance will save you time and money in the long run, and help you ensure the quality of your localizations.

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Question:
Sometimes when I go to select a file or folder for import, only a selected number of files or folders show up that I can select from. I know that the file or folder exists, I just cannot see it. Why is this?

Answer:
This problem occurs when the previously selected import folder (that was saved in the project definition) is moved. Transit will then default to the selected working folder for the project. To resolve this, simply click on the "Drives:" box below the folders selection, and reselect the drive where the files are found. At that point, the entire folder structure for the drive will reappear and you will be able to select the file or folder in question.

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One of the most common, but easily avoidable, problems in localized documentation is poor hyphenation. The cause of poor hyphenation is often that the localizer has not changed text to use language-proper hyphenation modules.

In QuarkXPress Passport the paragraph language is set in either the style definition or manually using the Paragraph Attributes dialog. In Adobe InDesign, language can be set in either the Character palette or in paragraph or character styles. Setting your text to use the proper hyphenators will greatly improve its readability and reduce time spent in correcting hyphenation problems during QA. If you are working in a language that your DTP software does not support, you should probably disable hyphenation entirely rather than use an incorrect hyphenation that would create errors in your documentation.

(Note that in monolingual versions of QuarkXPress, all text is reflowed using the hyphenator of that version of QuarkXPress, so multilingual documents should never be produced from a monolingual version of QuarkXPress unless hyphenation is disabled for the document.)

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