HackMD
Learn to use OmegaT in 5 minutes!
This short instructions are shown on OmegaT start-up screen.
1. Set up a new project
Note: On an Apple Mac, use the Command key (（key with ⌘ mark）instead of the Control key.
To start using OmegaT, first create a project that will hold all your files, such as your source file, translation memories, glossaries, and eventually your translated file. In the Project menu, select New… and type a name for your project. Remember where you are creating the project, because you will need to return to it later.
After you give your project a name, the Create New Project dialog will open. At the top of that dialog, select your source file's language and the language that your translated file will be, and click OK to continue.
If you are interested in other settings of this dialog, you can return to it any time by pressing Ctrl+E.
Next, the Project Files dialog opens. Click on Copy Files to Source Folder… to select your source files. OmegaT will then copy the selected files to the /source subfolder of your newly created project. After the source files have loaded in the Editor pane, you can close the Project Files dialog.
2. Translate the file
OmegaT will present one segment at a time for you to translate. After you have translated each segment, press Ctrl+U to move to the next untranslated segment (or Ctrl+Shift+U to move to the next translated segment). Whenever you want to see what your translation will look like in its final format, press Ctrl+D to generate the translated documents, which will be created in the /target subfolder of your project folder. During translation, use the Edit and Go To menus to perform various useful functions.
3. Validate your tags
If your source files are formatted files, e.g. Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer or HTML, OmegaT will convert the formatting into tags that surround the text that you translate. Often documents will also have tags that have nothing to do with formatting, but which are also important in the source files (and in the translated files). A source sentence might look like:
OmegaT, however, will present this sentence in the following fashion:
The tags in OmegaT are greyed, so they are easy to recognise. They are protected, so that you cannot modify their contents, but you can delete them, enter them by hand or move them around in the target sentence. However, if you made mistakes when you typed the formatting tags, your translated files might fail to open. Therefore, press Ctrl+Shift+V before you generate your translated files, to validate that your tags are correct.
4. Generate the translated file
Once you have made certain that there are no tag errors in your translation, press Ctrl+D to generate the target files, which will be created in the /target subfolder of your project folder.
5. Few more things to remember
If a file does not load into the Editor pane, then it could be that it is in a format that doesn't work in OmegaT. See Options → Preferences… → File Filters for a list of file formats that OmegaT can handle.
You can create a new project for each new job, and you can add new source files to a project at anytime.
To remind yourself of the project's initial settings, open the project properties dialog by pressing Ctrl+E. To see a list of files in the project, open the Project Files dialog by pressing Ctrl+L.
At the end of your translation, OmegaT exports three translation memories called level1, level2 and omegat to your project folder. The level1 and level2 memories can be shared with users of other translation programs. The memory named omegat can be used by OmegaT itself, in future projects that you create. If you place such translation memory files in the /tm subfolder of a project, OmegaT will automatically search them for similar segments, called "fuzzy matches".
You can add a new term to the glossary by pressing Ctrl+Shift+G, or copy existing glossaries to the /glossary subfolder of your project folder, and OmegaT will automatically look up words in them.
It is often useful to search for words and phrases in the source text and in your translation, so press Ctrl+F for the Text Search dialog at any time.
For a more comprehensive introduction see OmegaT for beginners on the OmegaT web site. If you need assistance with any aspect of OmegaT, feel free to join the OmegaT users group.
