Chapter 4. The user interface
Prev |  | Next

# Chapter 4. The user interface

## 1. Main OmegaT window, other windows and dialogs

OmegaT main window contains the main menu, status bar and several panes. Additional windows are available, as well as dialogs, used to change OmegaT project settings. The information below summarizes their use and how they are invoked:

Table 4.1. Main OmegaT window

Editor pane | where you type and edit the translation
Match pane | displays the most similar segments from translation memories
Glossary pane | displays terminology found for items in the current segment
Dictonary pane | displays dictionary hits found for items in the current segment
Machine Translations pane | displays the translation, provided by MT services
Notes pane | notes pertaining to the current segment, e.g. alternative translations or the current key in case of key=value file formats
Comments pane | Comments by the author in PO files, or the name of the attribute being translated (in XHTML)

Table 4.2. Other windows

Tag Validation window | Used to validate tags (open with Ctrl+Shift+V, close with Esc)
Help browser | Used to display the user manual (open with F1, close with Esc)
Statistics window | Used to open the window with the statistics of the project, display it, using Tools → Statistics.
Match statistics window | Used to display the match statistics of the project, select Tools → Match statistics to open it.

Table 4.3. Settings dialogs

Project properties | Used to modify the project folders and languages (access via Ctrl+E shortcut or Project → properties..., close via Esc)
Font | Used to modify the font used by OmegaT to display source, translation, matches and glossary terms, (access via Options → Font..., close via Esc)
File filters | Used to adjust the handling of supported file formats (access via Options → File Filters..., close via Esc)
Segmentation | Used to change the way your text is segmented into sentences (access via Options → Segmentation, close via Esc)
Editing Behavior | Used to change how OmegaT behaves when you iterate between the segments (access via Options → Behavior..., close via Esc)

## 2. OmegaT main window

Figure 4.1. OmegaT main window

The main window consists of several panes, the main menu and a status bar. You can change the position of any pane or even undock it to a separate window by clicking and dragging the pane by its name. Depending on the pane status, different signs can appear at its top right corner:

### Note

If you can not see all the panes (be it opened or minimized), pressing Options > Restore Main Window will restore them to the state, defined in the installation.

Table 4.4. Pane widgets

| minimizes the pane, so that only its name is shown at the bottom of the window
| maximizes the pane
| restores the layout before the maximizing step
| undocks the pane from the main window
| puts the pane back within the main window

You can overlap panes if desired. When this is done the panes display a tab at the top. The separators between the panes can be dragged to resize panes. Should you lose track of your changes to the user interface, you can use Options → Restore the main window any time to return to the original layout.

The counters in the lower right corner keep track of the progress of the translation (numbers in the left hand column refer to the figure above):

Table 4.5. Main Window - counters

27/27 | number of segments - translated vs total for the current file
9319/16338 | number of unique segments - translated vs total in the project
31175 | total number of segments (including repeats) in the project
103/114 | number of source and target characters in the current segment

From a practical point of view, the most important pair of numbers is the second pair: it tells, how much you have done so far, in relation to the total or second number. The project in the example is evidently finished, as all the unique segments have been translated.

### 2.1. Editor pane

This is where you type and edit your translation. The Editor pane displays the text of the partially translated document: the text already translated is displayed in translation while the untranslated text is displayed in the original language. The displayed text is split into segments and you may scroll through the document and double-click on any segment to open and edit it. In the above case, the segments already translated are shown in yellow.

One of the above segments is the current segment. It is the segment that is displayed in two parts. The upper part is in the source language, in bold characters with a green background color, the lower part is the editing field, ended by a marker: the marker is `<segment nnnn>` where nnnn is a number of the segment in the project. Use the upper part as a reference and replace or modify the contents of the editing field with your translation.

Depending upon the preferred editing behavior, the editing field for the untranslated segment may be empty, contain the source text, or contain the translation of the string most similar to the one to be translated. When you move to another segment, the translation is validated and stored. If you want the translation to be the same as the source, simply make the editing field empty by removing all the text (select all with Ctrl+A and delete with Del). OmegaT is able to store translations that are identical to the source. This is useful for documents that contain trade marks, names or other proper nouns, or parts in a third language that do not require translation. See Translation editing for more details.

If you right click on the Editor pane, a pop-up menu opens, offering Cut, Copy, Paste (i.e. same functions as Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V) and the GoTo segment functions.

### 2.2. Fuzzy matches pane

Figure 4.2. Matches pane

The match viewer shows the most similar segments from translation memories, both from internal project translation memory created in real time as you translate your project and from ancillary translation memories you have imported from your earlier jobs, or received from your client or translation agency.

When you move to the next segment, the first fuzzy match (the one with the best matching percentage) is automatically selected. You may select a different match by pressing Ctrl+2, 3, 4, or 5. Of course, pressing Ctrl+5 will have no effect, if there is no match #5. To use the selected match in your translation, use Ctrl+R to replace the target field with the match or use Ctrl+I to insert it at the cursor position.

The matching percentage is roughly equivalent to taking the number of common words in the matched and the matching segment and dividing by the number of words in the longer of the two. The selected fuzzy match is highlighted in bold, words that are missing in the segment you are translating are colored blue and words adjacent to the missing parts green. In the above example the source segment is Context menu command. The top match is 100%, because all words match. So do the next two matches, and the match #4 is similar, but different. The line with the matching percentage also includes the name of the translation memory containing the match. If there's no file name displayed, the source is the internal project translation memory. Orphan segments (the match #2) describe segments in the default project translation memory that have no corresponding source segment.

There are actually three match estimates available (66/66/30 in the case of the match #4 above). They are defined as follows:

- match percentage (taking into account tokenizers)

- default OmegaT match - number of matched words - with numerals and tags ignored - divided by the total word count

- OmegaT match, including numbers, tags

#### 2.2.1. Customizing the Fuzzy matches pane

In Options > External TMXs, a number of variables allow to configure the display of the match pane:

Figure 4.3. Matches pane setup

The figure above shows the default match display template. The contents can be customized using following variables:

Table 4.6. Match pane setup

`${id}` | Number of the match from 1 to 5
`${sourceText}` | Source text of the match
`${targetText}` | Target text of the match
`${diff}` | String showing the differences between the source and the match. Hint: use this if the text, you are translating has been updated.
`${score}` | Percentage with tokenizer
`${noStemScore}` | Percentage without numbers and tags
`${adjustedScore}` | Percentage adjusted
`${fileNameOnly}` | Name of the TMX
`${filePath}` | Full path of the TMX
`${fileShortPath}` | Path of the TMX starting from the root of /tm
`${creationID}` | Author of the match
`${creationDate}` | Date of the match
`${fuzzyFlag}` | Indicate that this match is fuzzy (currently only for translations from PO files with the #fuzzy mark)

### 2.3. Glossary pane

The Glossary pane allows you to access your own collection of expressions and specialist terminology which you have built up in your glossary files. It shows translation of terms found in the current segment. The source segment in the example below was “Context menu command”, as in the Fuzzy Matches example above, and the terms shown were found in the glossaries, available (Microsoft's Term collection and Slovenian Linux User group Glossary).

Figure 4.4. multi-word entry in the glossary

If you have TransTips option activated (Options → TransTips), you can right click on the highlighted word in the source segment to open a pop-up menu with suggested translation, as offered by your glossary. Selecting one of them will insert it at the current cursor position into the target segment. You can also highlight your preferred alternative in the glossary pane and insert it into the target by right clicking on the selection.

### 2.4. Dictionary pane

Dictionaries are the electronic equivalents of printed dictionaries like Merriam Webster, Duden, Larousse etc., that you may have on your desk. See more about them in the chapter on Dictionaries

### 2.5. Multiple Translations pane

A given source segment may require several different translations, depending on the context. If the current translation of the segment does not fit, the user can select Edit → Create Alternative Translation. The target text entered after that will be treated as an alternative translation of the source segment. You can define one of the alternative - for instance the most probable among them - as default translation by selecting Edit → Use as Default Translation

### 2.6. Notes pane

The translator can add notes to the opened segment, for instance to come back later to the segment and redo the translation, check that alternative translations are correct or to ask colleagues for their opinion. You can browse through notes using GoTo → Next Note and GoTo → Previous Note.

### 2.7. Comments pane

Some of the file formats, specialized for translation work, for instance PO, allow the inclusion of comments. This way the translator can be provided the context about the segment to be translated. In the example below, the author of the PO file included a warning for the translator to check the length of the translation:

Figure 4.5. Comments pane

### 2.8. Machine Translation pane

The machine translation pane, when opened, contains the suggestions by machine translation tools for the current segment. Press Ctrl+M to replace the translation of the current segment with the suggested translation. More in the chapter Machine translation

### 2.9. Main menu

The main menu provides access to all OmegaT functions. See the Main Menu appendix for a full description of all menus and menu items. The most frequently used functions are accessible with keyboard shortcuts, so once you become accustomed to them, you will no longer need to browse through the menus while translating. See chapter Menu and Keyboard shortcuts for details.

### 2.10. Status bar

The status bar displays work-flow related messages at the bottom of the main window. This bar gives the user feedback on specific operations that are in progress. It also displays the number of fuzzy and glossary matches for the current segment.

## 3. Other windows

### 3.1. Project files

The Project Files window lists the project files and displays other project information. It is displayed automatically when OmegaT loads a project. Use Ctrl+L to open and Esc to close it. The Project Files Window displays the following information:

- the total number of translatable files in the project. These are the files present in the /source folder in a format that OmegaT is able to recognize. This number is displayed in brackets, next to the "Project file" title

- the list of all translatable files in the project. Clicking on any file will open it for translation. Note: filenames (in first column) can be sorted alphabetically by clicking in the header. It also possible to change the position of a filename, by clicking on it and pressing Move ... buttons.

- the file currently available in the Editor pane is highlighted with a blue background. Pressing Enter will move the Editor pane to the top of the file selected

- File entries include their names, file filter types, their encoding and the number of segments each file contains

- the total number of segments, the number of unique segments in the whole project, and the number of unique segments already translated are shown at the bottom

The set of Unique segments is computed by taking all the segments and removing all duplicate segments. (The definition of “unique” is case-sensitive: "Run" and "run" are treated as being different)

The difference between "Number of segments" and "Number of unique segments" provides an approximate idea of the number of repetitions in the text. Note however that the numbers do not indicate how relevant the repetitions are: they could mean relatively long sentences repeated a number of times (in which case you are fortunate) or it could describe a table of keywords (not so fortunate). The `project_stats.txt` located in the omegat folder of your project contains more detailed segment information, broken down by file.

Modifying the segmentation rules may have the effect of modifying the number of segments/unique segments. This, however, should generally be avoided once you have started translating the project. See the chapter Segmentation rules for more information.

Adding files to the project: You can add source files to the project by clicking on the "Import Source Files..." button. This copies the selected files to the `source` folder and reloads the project to import the new files. You can also add source files from Internet pages, written in MediaWiki, by clicking on "Import from MediaWiki" button and providing the corresponding URL.

### 3.2. Search window

You can use the search window to find specific segments in a project. You can also have several search windows open simultaneously. To open a new search window, use Ctrl+F in the Main window. The search window consists of a text field for search strings or keywords, flags and radio buttons for setting up the search and a display area containing the results of the search. See the chapter Searches for more information about the search window.

### 3.3. Tag validation

The tag validation window detects and lists any tag errors and inconsistencies in the translation. Open the window with Ctrl+T. The window features a 3 column table with a link to the segment and its source and target contents:

Figure 4.6. Tag validation window

Tags are highlighted in bold blue for easy comparison between the original and the translated contents. Click on the link to jump to the segment in the Editor pane. Correct the error if necessary and press Ctrl+T to return to the tag validation window to correct other errors. In the first and third case above tags are paired incorrectly, and in the second case the < sign is missing from the starting tag.

Tag errors are cases in which the tags in the translation do not correspond in order and number to the original segment. Some tag scenarios flagged in the tag validation window are necessary and are benign, others will cause problems when the translated document is created. Tags generally represent some kind of formatting in the original text. Simplifying the original text formatting in the source file before commencing translation greatly contributes to reducing the number of tags.

### 3.4. Statistics

The statistics window - accessed via Tools>Statistics - shows the statistics of the current OmegaT project, both in the summary form as well as in detail for every file to be translated. The statistics shown is available as a tab-separated `project_stats.txt` file (subfolder `omegat`), ready to be loaded into a spreadsheet program for the user's convenience. You can use Ctrl+A , Ctrl+C , Ctrl+V to copy/paste the contents.

Figure 4.7. project statistics

### 3.5. Match statistics

The match statistics are accessed viaTools>Match Statistics. The evaluation is rather CPU intensive and can be time-consuming, so a progress bar is shown during the calculation. As far as categories are concerned, the de facto industry standard of classifying matches into the following groups is used: Repetitions, Exact match, 95%-100%, 85%-94%, 75%-84%, 50%-74% and No match. This information is computed for segments as well as for words and for characters (without and including spaces). Note that there could be minor differences between the OmegaT counts and the numbers, provided by other CAT tools.

Figure 4.8. Match statistics

Note that these totals are a good (or as good as they can be) approximation of the work involved in the project and thus can serve as a basis for your cost and price calculations.

Spaces between segments are not taken into account in the last column. Repetitions stand for identical segments present several times in the text. The first segment and its contents will be classified as "no match", and the rest of them as a repetition of the first. If the translation for several identical source segments already exists in the translation memory of the project, these segments, together with other, already translated unique segments, will be classified as an "Exact match". The number of unique segments, if needed, is provided in the standard statistics window, regardless of whether they have been translated or not.

The rest of the categories (50-100%) involves untranslated segments with a fuzzy match. Fuzzy matches can come from the `/tm` folder as well - and not just from the internal translation memory in `/omegaT,` as is the case for repetitions and exact matches. The only difference with matches from the `project_save` translation memory is that external TMs cannot give exact matches, only 100%. If one does not wish to use external TMs for counting, one will either have to empty the /tm folder or change the project setup (temporarily) so that the value for /tm points to a different location.

The Match Statistics are tab-separated and you can use Ctrl+A , Ctrl+C , Ctrl+V to copy/paste them, for instance into a spreadsheet or into your cost-accounting application. Once computed, the data also available in `omegat/project_stats_match.txt.` Note that the file is time-stamped, as the calculation (contrary to the standard statistics) is not instantaneous and can thus quickly become obsolete.

### 3.6. Help browser

The help browser (which displays this manual) can be opened by pressing F1 or navigating to Help → User Manual... in the main menu. In the window, the manual and two buttons are displayed: Back and Contents. The user manual is an HTML document with links to different chapters. Clicking on a link as you would do in a web browser brings the desired page to the front.

The user manual is located in the docs subfolder under the OmegaT installation folder, so you may can, for instance, view the English documentation by opening the `docs/en/index.html` file in your browser. Opening the user manual in this way also enables you to follow external links, as the built-in help browser does not accept external Internet links.

Prev |  | Next
Chapter 3. Installing and running OmegaT | Home | Chapter 5. Menu and Keyboard shortcuts