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Translate only the highlighted text in a Word file

When you update a manual, a contract or a datasheet, usually only a few passages have actually changed. Taia can extract just those, so the rest of the document is never sent to a translator, never counted in your word count, and comes back untouched.

Mark the changed passages in Word with a highlight, and tell Taia which colour to look for.

How to set it up​

  1. In Word, highlight the text you want translated. Any of Word's highlight colours works, and you can use more than one.
  2. Upload the file to Taia as usual.
  3. In the Selected files list, click the gear icon next to the file.
  4. Under Highlighted text, choose Only the highlighted text.
  5. Yellow is selected for you. Click any other swatch to add a colour, or click a selected one to remove it.

That's it. When the project is created, only the highlighted passages become translatable segments.

What you get back​

The whole document, with the highlighted passages translated and everything else exactly as you sent it. Layout, images, tables, headers and the untouched text all stay put. You are not handed back a file containing only the translated fragments.

The other direction​

Everything except the highlighted text does the reverse: it leaves the highlighted parts alone and translates the rest. This is for the case where a colour marks something that must not be touched, like a reviewer's notes or a passage that is already approved.

Nothing is selected for you here, on purpose. Pick the colours you want left alone.

Setting it for everyone​

If your team always works this way, an organization manager can set it once:

  1. Go to Profile → Manage Organization → Org settings.
  2. Open File processing defaults.
  3. Set Highlighted text under the Word section.

Every Word file anyone uploads then starts with that setting, and they can still change it per file before creating the project.

Good to know​

  • It works on .docx, .docm, .dotx and .dotm. Older .doc files and .rtf do not carry highlight information in a form we can read. Save as .docx first.
  • "Include hidden text" switches off while a highlight filter is on, and the switch is greyed out. Word treats everything the filter leaves out as hidden text, so having both on would translate the whole document and the filter would do nothing.
  • A file with none of your chosen colours in it is refused, with a message saying so, rather than being accepted and delivered back to you unchanged. If you see that, check the document really uses the highlight colour you picked.
  • Colour names follow Word's own. "Turquoise" in the Word ribbon is the swatch we call Turquoise; hover any swatch to see its name.
  • Your word count reflects what was extracted. Only the highlighted text is counted, so this is where the saving shows up.
Last updated on by adminTAIA