Translation Related File Formats¶
These are the different storage formats for translations and files associated with translations that are supported by the toolkit. See also Standards conformance for standards conformance.
The Translate Toolkit implements a set of classes for handling translation files which allows for a uniform API which covers other issues such as quoting and escaping of text.
Primary translation formats¶
Other translation formats¶
INI Files (including Inno Setup .isl dialect)
Java Mozilla and Java properties files (also Mozilla derived properties files)
Mozilla Mozilla DTD format
OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org GSI/SDF format (Also called SDF)
PHP translation arrays
Qt Linguist Qt .ts (both 1.0 and 1.1 supported, 1.0 has a converter)
Symbian localization files
Windows Windows RC files files
Mac OSX Mac OSX strings files (also used on the iPhone) (from version 1.8)
Adobe Adobe Flex properties files files (from version 1.8)
Haiku Haiku catkeys (from version 1.8)
Android string resources (supports storage, not conversion)
.NET Resource files (.resx) .NET Resource files (.resx)
Mozilla .lang files
Translation Memory formats¶
Trados: .txt TM (from v1.9.0 – read only)
Glossary formats¶
OmegaT glossary (from v1.5.1)
Universal Terminology eXchange (UTX) (from v1.9.0)
Formats of translatable documents¶
Machine readable formats¶
Gettext Gettext .mo
Qt Qt .qm (read-only)
In development¶
Unsupported formats¶
Formats that we would like to support but don’t currently support:
Wordfast:
Glossary tab-delimited “source,target,comment” i.e. like OmegaT but unsure if any extension is required.
Apple:
Adobe:
FrameMaker’s Maker Interchange Format – MIF (See also python-gendoc, and Perl MIF module)
FrameMaker’s Maker Markup Language (MML)
Microsoft
Word, Excel, etc (probably through usage of OpenOffice.org)
OOXML (at least at the text level we don’t have to deal with much of the mess inside OOXML). See also: Open XML SDK v1
Rich Text Format (RTF) see also pyrtf-ng
XML related
LaTeX – see plasTeX, a Python framework for processing LaTeX documents
unoconv – Python bindings to OpenOffice.org UNO which could allow manipulation of all formats understood by OpenOffice.org.
Trados:
Multiterm XML TSV to MiltiTerm conversion script or XLST
.tmw
.txt (You can interchange using TMX) Format explanation with some examples.
Tcl: .msg files. Good documentation
Installers:
NSIS installer: Existing C++ implementation
WiX – MSI (Microsoft Installer) creator. Localization instructions, more notes on localisation. This is a custom XML format, another one!
catgets/gencat: precedes gettext, looking in man packages is the best information I could find. Also LSB requires it. There is some info about the source (msgfile) format on GNU website
Deja Vu External View: Instructions sent to a translator, Description of external view options and process
Unlikely to be supported¶
These formats are either: too difficult to implement, undocumented, can be processed using some intermediate format or used by too few people to justify the effort. Or some combination or these issues.