Overview: Auto-Substitution

During translation, some text may not need to change. SDL Trados Studio can treat some elements in your source text as non-translatable elements or recognized tokens and transfer these directly into your target document.

Tokens that can be Auto-Substituted:

• Dates

• Times

• Numbers

• Measurements

• Variables

• Acronyms

• Alphanumeric strings

Auto-substitution of recognized tokens occurs when the matching source segment in the translation memory contains a recognized token that is different to that in the source segment in the document. When the translation memory is applied, Studio automatically substitutes the recognized token from the source segment in the document to the translation in the target segment.

Auto-Localization

Some recognized tokens can also be transferred to the target document in a localized form. During auto-substitution, dates, times and measurements are also adapted to the format of the target language. This process is called auto-localization. For example, the English (United States) date Friday, May 23, 2009 is localized to the German (Germany) date Freitag, 23. Mai 2009. See Overview: Auto-Localization.

Auto-Substitution Settings

• Use the Translation Memory Settings or the Auto-substitutions dialog box to select options for automatically recognizing dates, times, numbers, measurements, variables, acronyms and alphanumeric strings during translation. Any options you leave unchecked are treated as normal, translatable words. If the only items that change in a new segment are non-translatable recognized tokens,  Studio produces a 100% match. If you have an auto-localization penalty and/or text replacement penalty applied, this match will be less than 100%.
• Use the Dates and Times and the Measurements pages to specify the format to which dates, times and measurements are auto-localized.

Related Topics

How to Specify Auto-Substitution Settings

Overview: Auto-Localization