## The User Interface

User interface items Windows you'll use most of the time Windows you may use now and then Dialogs you'll use to change your project settings OmegaT main window Editor pane Match viewer Glossary Main menu Status bar Dialogs you'll use to change your project settings | Other windows Project files Project Files Window features Unique segments Adding files to the project Search window Search types Wildcards and regular expressions Search results display Tag validation Help browser

## User interface items

### Windows you'll use most of the time

OmegaT main window | contains the Main menu, status bar and 3 panes:
--- Editor pane | where you type and edit the translation
--- Match Viewer pane | with the most similar segments from translation memories
--- Glossary Viewer pane | with the terminology translation
Project Files window | with the list of your translatable files, triggered with `Ctrl+L`, closed with `esc`
Search window | to search for specific segments in the project, triggered with `Ctrl+F`, closed with `esc`

### Windows you may use now and then

Tag Validation window | to check for tag mistakes in translations, triggered with `Ctrl+T`, closed with `esc`
Help browser | to read the user manual, closed with `esc`

### Dialogs you'll use to change your project settings

You'll use the dialogs below to change OmegaT and project settings. All of them are described in separate sections, below we just summarize what they can be used for and how you may call them up:

Project Properties | to modify the project folders and languages , triggered with `Ctrl+E` or with Project → Properties..., closed with `esc`
Font | to modify the font OmegaT uses for displaying source, translation, matches and glossary terms, triggered with Options → Font..., closed with `esc`
File filters | to adjust the handling of supported file formats, triggered with Options → File Filters..., closed with `esc`
Segmentation | to change the way your text is segmented into sentences, triggered with Options → Segmentation, closed with `esc`
Editing Behaviour | to change how OmegaT behaves when you iterate between the segments, triggered with Options → Editing Behaviour..., closed with `esc`

## OmegaT main window

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

reduces the pane to show only its name at the bottom near the status bar.
makes the pane take all the available window space.
puts the pane back where it was before before it was minimized or maximized.
detaches the pane from the main window to a separate window of its own.
puts the pane back within the main window.

It is also possible to put the panes so that they overlap. In this case the panes will display a tab at their top. Clicking on the tab will put the pane on the foreground. The separators between the panes can be dragged to resize panes.

### Editor pane

Here you'll type and edit the translation. Editor pane displays the text of the partially translated document: the text already translated is displayed translated, and the text not yet translated 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 edit it. In the above case the already translated segments are shown in yellow, but you may change the setup to suit your preferences (see menu View).

One of the segments is the active segment. It is the only one that is displayed in two parts: the upper part is in the original language, in bold characters with a green background color, the lower part is the editing field, delimited by two markers: the leftmost marker is `<segment nnnn>` where `nnnn` is a number of the segment in the project, the rightmost marker is `<end segment>`. You use the upper part as a reference and overwrite or modify the contents of the editing field with your translation.

Depending on the Editing behaviour the editing field for the untranslated segment may be empty, contain the source text or the translation of the string most similar to the one you are going to translate. When you move to another segment, the translation is validated and stored. If you want the segment to stay untranslated, simply make the editing field empty by removing all the text (select all with `Ctrl+A` and delete with `Del`). OmegaT may remember a translation when it is identical to the source. It is useful for documents that contain trade marks, names or other proper nouns, or parts in a third language that does not require translation.

See Translation editing for more details.

### Match viewer

Match viewer shows the most similar segments from translation memories, both from project translation memory created while you translate your project, and from legacy translation memories you import from your earlier jobs, or you may receive 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 another one by pressing `Ctrl+2`, `3`, `4`, or `5.`Of course, pressing `Ctrl+5` will do nothing, if there is no match #5.

To use the selected match in your translation, use `Ctrl+R` to replace the target field with that 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 longest of the two. The selected fuzzy match will be highlighted in bold, words that are missing from the segment you translate will be colored in blue and word adjacent to missing parts in green. In the above example the source segment is Information about Java & OmegaT. The top match is 75%, because 3 out of 4 words (with & getting ignored) match. The line with the matching percentage also includes to source TMX, where the match has been found. If there's no file name displayed, the source is the default project translation memory. Orphan segments (the match #4) describe segments in the default project translation memory without the corresponding source segment.

### Glossary

Glossary pane features terminology translation loaded from glossary files. It shows translation of terms found in the current segment, but it only shows it for reference purposes, and does not allow to insert or replace the term with its translation.

The source segment in the above example was “In most translation jobs it is considered important to have the translated document look similar to the original.”, and two words in it, document and translation were found in the glossary file. OmegaT also supports multi-word terms, but in a very basic manner: if both words of a term are found in current segment, the term will be displayed.

### Main menu

Obviously, you can use main menu to access all OmegaT functions. See the Main Menu appendix for a full description of all menu's and menu items. The most often used functions are accessible with keyboard shortcuts, so once you get accustomed to them, there will no longer be any need to browse through the menus while translating.

### Status bar

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

## Other windows

### Project files

Project Files window lists the project files and displays other project information. It is displayed automatically when OmegaT loads a project. To close it, use `esc`, to open it or call it to the front use `Ctrl+L`.

### Project Files Window features

The following information is displayed.

- the list of all the translatable files in the project. These are the files present in the source files folder, that OmegaT can handle. Clicking on any file will open it for translation

- the file currently available in the Editor pane is highlighted with a blue background

- the number of segments in each file is shown next to file name.

- the number of unique segments in the whole project.

- the number of unique segments already translated. It is updated each time you translate a segment.

### Unique segments

The set of Unique segments is computed by taking all the segments and removing all the duplicate segments equal up to letter case ("Run" and "run" are thought different).

The difference between "Number of segments" and "Number of unique segments" gives you a rough idea of the number of repetitions in the text. Note however, that the numbers do not say how relevant the repetitions are: it could mean relatively long sentences repeated a number of times (very lucky!) or it could describe a table of keywords (not as lucky...) The `project_stats.txt` located in the `/omegat` folder of your project contains more detailed segment information per file.

It is possible to modify the number of segments/unique segments by modifying the segmentation rules. This, however, should be avoided at all costs, once you have started translating the project. See the Segmentation rules for more information.

### Adding files to the project

You may add source files to the project by clicking on the "Import Source Files..." button. It copies the selected files to the `/source` folder and reloads the project to load 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.

### Search window

You'll use search window to find specific segments in the project. There can be several search windows open simultaneously. To open a new one, use `Ctrl+F` in main window. The search window consists of a text field for search string or keywords, flags and radio buttons for setting up the search and a display area containing the results of the search.

### Search types

There are two types of search available:
exact searches - look for the specified query string within the current project or in any folder or folder tree.
keyword searches - examine the current project and return all the segments containing all of the query words, in any order.

Searches are made on both the source and translation. You may also search within any folder, but bear in mind that OmegaT can search only in files it supports.

### Wildcards and regular expressions

Searches supports the wild card characters * and ? as well as regular expressions.

### Search results display

Pressing the search button after entering a string in the search field will display all the segments in the project that include the searched string. As OmegaT handles all the identical segments as one entity, only the first unique segment is shown. The segments are displayed in order of appearance in the project. Translated segments will be displayed with the original text at the top and the translated text at the bottom, non translated segments will be displayed in original text only.

You may click on a segment to bring it up in the Editor for modification. Then you may switch back to Search window and go to the next found segment to modify it too. Such a pattern is useful to do terminology updates.

### Tag validation

The tag validation window detects the tag errors in the translation and lists them. To open the window, use `Ctrl+T`. The window features a 3 column table with a link to the segment and its source and target contents:

The 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 starting tag is missing the < sign.

Tag errors are tag manipulations in the translation that do not reproduce the same tag order and number as in the original segment. Some tag manipulations are necessary and are benign, some will cause problems when the translated document is created. Tags generally represent some kind of formatting in the original text. Simplifying the original text formating greatly contributes to reducing the number of tags.

### Help browser

The help browser (which displays this manual) can be called by pressing F1 or calling Help → User Manual... in main menu.

### Help browser navigation

In the window you'll see the manual and two buttons: 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.

### User manual off line browsing

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

Legal notices | Home | Index of contents