Importing Content to a Translation Memory

Data can be imported into a Memsource translation memory. To do this, open the Translation Memories page, select your TM, and click on the Import button.

Supported file types:

1. TMX - a standard exchange format supported by most CAT tools.
2. MXLIFF - a special Memsource bilingual XLIFF.
3. XLS - a specially formatted Excel file.
4. SDL WorldServer XLIFF - available only for import, not for export.

Import Options

Once you click the Import button, you'll see a File field that you can use to drag and drop files to and a Browse button. You'll also see three checkboxes: Remove tags, Strict locale matching, and Ignore not confirmed segments.

Remove tags will remove all of the tags that were imported from TMX files. However, the special Memsource tags ({1} or <2}) in XLSX and MXLIFF files will be preserved.

Strict locale matching will prevent the importing of a language if it has a different locale than the project. For instance, a file with an "EN_US" designation will not be imported into a TM with an "EN" designation.

Selecting Ignore not confirmed segments (MXLIFF) will ensure that segments that were not confirmed in the MXLIFF file will not be imported into the TM.

Adding, Skipping, and Overwriting Segments:

When importing content into a TM that already contains segments, these segments will either be added as new segments, overwrite existing segments, or skipped altogether. If a segment has the same source, target, and context as a pre-existing segment, the new segment will be skipped and not added to the Memsource TM. If the new segment has the same source and context, but with a different target than another segment, the new segment will overwrite the pre-existing segment. All other segments will simply be added to the translation memory.

TM Import Errors

At times, you may receive an error during a TM import. By far, the most frequent reasons for import errors are non-corresponding languages, illegal characters, or other similar irregularities in the file which you attempted to import. There is also a limit to a size of the file (1GB). Please check your file to ensure the languages in your TM match with the languages in your project and that the formatting for each language is set up correctly.