Translation with Word vs XLIFF 2.0

We are currently using a test version of Trados Studio, which we have connected to deepL-Pro, to translate around 30 Rise tutorials from English into several languages (DE, FR, PL, ...). In some cases also from German into the other languages. The translation process works really well after some initial difficulties. Only in the XLIFF file exported from the original German tutorial is "en-US" given as the original language. Trados does not like this. However, we changed the language abbreviation to "de-DE" by hand and it works fine. We use Multiterm for our technical terms, which also works fine. The system learns quickly and we have a bit of work, but we save a lot of translation costs and, above all, we are independent in terms of time.
We can also use Trados Studio to output a bilingual Word document for quality assurance, which our native speaker trainers in France and Poland can correct and we can then import again. So far, the test has been very successful!

The enhanced word translation works best for me, we tried XLIFF with a couple of agencies and never worked.

Phil, thanks for that info.can I ask, what kinds of issues did you have with the XLIFF?

Currently, we are struggling with an agency, and with every XLF file we get, there are issues with missing spaces or removed line breaks. This results in words running together, paragraphs running together, or multiple bullets being combine into one. I'm guessing this is accidental on their part, but they have no QC process to check the files.

Very interesting, and disappointing. Our first effort with the agency we're using, they translated the <source> tag content (the original English text from the export feature), instead of adding new <target> tag content (typically via their CAT software). From that, an import of the XLF file resulted in nothing changing. Articulate support pointed this out to me (thx, team), and I informed the agency. Their next effort retained the English <source> content and had new <target> content in the specified language, and that worked... except for the current spacing/line break issues.

I may have to see if the Word export is better. Phil, another question for you: Does your content contain numbered or bulleted lists, and did the lists still look as expected after importing the Word doc translation? Thanks much for your notes!

Yes content has ordered and unordered lists they display correctly.

I have seen agencies do that before, translating the source it is a pain, I have also had one completely break the XLIFF and charge for it with no help to fix. Luckliy it was a short course and we ended up cutting and pasting from the XLIFF.

What program do you use to open .xlf files? I've tried notepad, excel, and dreamweaver. 

Typically, I just use the Word document version for translations, but Rise360 only exports to .xlf files

Notepad should do the trick - I see that it opens a file for me. I do other development work, so I use a test editor called Visual Studio Code (a free program).

What translation services is everyone using? We use Wordbee. Does anyone else use Wordbee as well with Storyline 360 translations? And have you experienced any issues or successes?

We have also had issues with xliff v1.2 with line breaks and list losing the spacing after importing into Storyline. After reaching out to Articulate Support, they have logged this as a possible bug.

We are going to explore the Word export option to see if that solves our issue. In Wordbee, currently when we load the Word export, it pulls in words form the entire document instead of just the Translation column. Has anyone experienced this and if so, how did you resolve this? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I actually use colleagues in other countries instead of a translation service, so we typically use the Word export. I was just looking into XLIFF because Rise360 only exports to XLIFF.

I think the original column and translation column are helpful to the translators so they always have a reference of what the original text is for reviewing purposes.

The better question is why does Storyline export the translation matrix into Word at all? Excel would be so much more versatile for the already infuriating and expensive process of translation. Anyone who makes - or causes to be made - tables in Word should be marooned on an asteroid in the Kuiper Belt.