ProZ.com Translation Forums

Clients dictate the file format, but how can we promote ODT? | Not based on

Samuel Murray — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 21:27:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Clients dictate the file format, but how can we promote ODT?
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: Not based on

[quote]CafeTran Trainer wrote:
Euro-Office is based on the Microsoft file formats, making Microsoft still stay in control. [/quote]
That is not true. Euro-Office uses the Microsoft file format as its default save-file format, but that does not mean that it is "based on" the Microsoft file format.

Clients dictate the file format, but how can we promote ODT? | Deliver both

Tony M — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 20:21:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Clients dictate the file format, but how can we promote ODT?
Poster: Tony M
Post title: Deliver both

I don't think there's a lot we can do, other than always deliver our work in BOTH formats
The trouble is, .DOC is compatible both ways round, whereas .ODT is not.
I had to stop using OO because the compatibility with MS DOC format was not perfect, especially on documents with more complex formatting.
But I am able to use OO for all my personal work, of course!

Clients dictate the file format, but how can we promote ODT?

CafeTran Trainer — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 15:19:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Clients dictate the file format, but how can we promote ODT?
Poster: CafeTran Trainer

Euro-Office is based on the Microsoft file formats, making Microsoft still stay in control.

How can we as European (and other) translators help LibreOffice gain impact?

[url removed]

[Edited at 2026-06-14 19:07 GMT]

Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs) | Output

CafeTran Trainer — Tue, 26 May 2026 13:29:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs)
Poster: CafeTran Trainer
Post title: Output

[quote]Karletto666 wrote:

I've never saw anything like it. Probably the author is not very experienced in Excel, has basic knowledge of it and unable to insert a vertical column. [/quote]

If I recall correctly, these files are created by a leading software for automation. Siemens Step 5? Probably Step 7 now ;)

[url removed]

[Edited at 2026-05-27 05:15 GMT]

Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs) | Industry standard

CafeTran Trainer — Tue, 26 May 2026 13:27:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs)
Poster: CafeTran Trainer
Post title: Industry standard

[quote]Yossi Rozenman wrote:

With an experience of more than 30 years in the translation and localization industry, I rarely saw this format.

What is the point in using an Excel sheet like this? It misses the whole point of Excel, and you cannot use the file for translation in a Computer Aided Translation tool. [/quote]

If I recall correctly, they came to me via machine builders. This particular kind of files is used for automation of production machines.

There are cat tools that support this format.

[Edited at 2026-05-27 05:14 GMT]

Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs) | Well..

Gregor Trebec — Tue, 26 May 2026 10:26:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs)
Poster: Gregor Trebec
Post title: Well..

I've never saw anything like it. Probably the author is not very experienced in Excel, has basic knowledge of it and unable to insert a vertical column.

Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs) | I rarely saw this format

Yossi Rozenman — Tue, 26 May 2026 09:47:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs)
Poster: Yossi Rozenman
Post title: I rarely saw this format

With an experience of more than 30 years in the translation and localization industry, I rarely saw this format.

What is the point in using an Excel sheet like this? It misses the whole point of Excel, and you cannot use the file for translation in a Computer Aided Translation tool.

Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs) | Yes

kd42 — Tue, 26 May 2026 09:28:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs)
Poster: kd42
Post title: Yes

Yes, these are often used.

Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs)

CafeTran Trainer — Tue, 26 May 2026 06:25:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Vertically aligned Excel files to translate (Vertical bilingual pairs)
Poster: CafeTran Trainer

I remember receiving Excel files for software localization in which each source string was followed by its translation and then an empty separator row.

The import file looked like this:

Row Content
1 Source string
2 Target translation
3 Empty separator row
4 Next source string
5 Next target translation
6 Empty separator row

I am curious whether other variants of this *vertical layout* are commonly used in localization workflows. For example, are there formats with additional metadata rows, comments, IDs, status fields, or multiple target languages arranged vertically instead of horizontally?

The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word | Maybe more to come

Philippe Locquet — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 12:37:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word
Poster: Philippe Locquet
Post title: Maybe more to come

Thank you Martín and Erwin!

I hope more will add in this thread how it's done in other tools like CafeTran, OmegaT etc.
This way, with a simple internet search colleagues will be able to find the information, hopefully.

The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word | Options for alt, hidden text, etc. in Trados Studio

Martín Chamorro — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 23:20:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word
Poster: Martín Chamorro
Post title: Options for alt, hidden text, etc. in Trados Studio

Thanks for this, Philippe! It's great for pre-preparing the files.

In Trados you can go to File - Options - File types - Word (and its family) - Common and then you get the options below, where you can choose whether to process or not hidden text, alternative text, etc.

Cheers!

Tincho

[Edited at 2026-02-20 23:22 GMT]

The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word | Comparable option in memoQ

Erwin van Wouw — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:05:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word
Poster: Erwin van Wouw
Post title: Comparable option in memoQ

This is going on for a while now. I stopped importing descriptive text by unchecking the 'Import alternative text of images' option in memoQ's Word Filter from the General tab.

The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word | result = zero

Philippe Locquet — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:03:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word
Poster: Philippe Locquet
Post title: result = zero

[quote]Zea_Mays wrote:

Does this mean the data is sent to Microsoft servers where ChatGPT alias Copilot generate the description? How is your data protected in this process? (I don't use Office applications). [/quote]

Yes, this is AI generated, which does not happen on your computer, this is processed elsewhere (in this case, the picture). You have no data privacy at all because of this. You have an option to turn all of this off, but if you do, there are some bugs. And event then, you don't have a guarantee some data will not leave your computer.
[url removed]
For those working on very sensitive data (medical trials, government, legal etc.), they have to fallback to non-connected versions of Office or use a different family of applications.

The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word | data privacy?

Zea_Mays — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:27:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word
Poster: Zea_Mays
Post title: data privacy?

Does this mean the data is sent to Microsoft servers where ChatGPT alias Copilot generate the description? How is your data protected in this process? (I don't use Office applications).

The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word | Turns out it can also be filtered out in Wf Pro and Wf Anywhere

Philippe Locquet — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 14:50:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word
Poster: Philippe Locquet
Post title: Turns out it can also be filtered out in Wf Pro and Wf Anywhere

Following up on this topic, by doing some tests, I noticed that you can actually untick a section in the filters in Wordfast Pro and Wordfast Anywhere, and doing so automatically excludes that descriptive text when you upload the document into a project. You just need to untick the right box in the filters section (same box for Pro and Anywhere. I haven't had the time to test in other CATs, if you find out how, please add it to this thread.

Method

In Wf Pro:
Preferences>Filters>search docx>click MS word 2007 document (*.docx)>Untick “Extract Word shape alternative text”
In Wf Anywhere:
Wordfast Anywhere menu>Setup WFA>Pandora’s Box>8 Configure filters>doc,docx,rtf> Untick “Extract Word shape alternative text”

[img] [url removed] [/img]

The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word

Philippe Locquet — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 12:24:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: The visually descriptive text appearing in your documents comes from MS Word
Poster: Philippe Locquet

If you’ve noticed in your latest translations some text describing visual elements appearing in your CAT tool but not visible in the Word document, there is an explanation.

Microsoft Word now automatically scans your document, analyses your pictures or visual elements with AI and automatically attaches that AI-made description to the picture. The goal is for that text to be readable for accessibility purposes, especially for people with visual impairments.

You can turn off the feature, but if your document already has this text, the fix is to locate where MS Word stores it and delete it.
I explain how in this video: [url removed]

Hope this helps 😊

Tracked changes: formatted table | Balloons

Stepan Konev — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 11:33:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Tracked changes: formatted table
Poster: Stepan Konev
Post title: Balloons

They seem to have added a nonbreaking space everywhere before °С. It would be correct if the target language was Russian for example. In English, as far as I know, there should be no white space or nbsp between the number and the °С.

What regards the editing/formatting tooltips, they show up because of your settings. If you want to change it, navigate to the Review tab, Tracking group of icons, Show markup, Balloons. Your current setting most probably is 'Show all revisions inline'. It applies to all other edits either: e.g., if you hover over the green nonbreaking space character, you would see the edit tooltip.
You can change it to 'Show revisions in balloons' if you want to see the edits in the right-hand pane.

[Edited at 2025-12-21 12:18 GMT]

Tracked changes: formatted table | It might mean

Samuel Murray — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 12:38:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Tracked changes: formatted table
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: It might mean

[quote]Andrus Lauringson wrote:
I am updating a Word file, based on client's tracked changes, and when I hover the mouse cursor over a table, it simply says: "Formatted Table:" but no other information. [/quote]
It might mean that the table's formatting was changed while tracked changes was enabled. So, no text was changed, but the formatting was changed. E.g. it used to be right-aligned and now it's left-aligned.

Tracked changes: formatted table

Andrus Lauringson — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 01:55:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Tracked changes: formatted table
Poster: Andrus Lauringson

Hello!

I am updating a Word file, based on client's tracked changes, and when I hover the mouse cursor over a table, it simply says: "Formatted Table:" but no other information.
How to find out what (if anything) was changed? I don't see any differences.

[Edited at 2025-12-20 01:55 GMT]

Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024! | I will try the vendor's suggestion after I have delivered my current two big projects

Fredrik Pettersson — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 12:55:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024!
Poster: Fredrik Pettersson
Post title: I will try the vendor's suggestion after I have delivered my current two big projects

I received a reply from the vendor in Sweden a while ago, but need to complete my current two big projects first. I found out that I really don't need MS Office in order to complete these projects.

Their customer service told me that my product key is already registered and activated on my Microsoft account. So my product is fine, it works as intended. The problem, they told me, is that Office tries to log in through the wrong activation window in the installer. It sounds easy, but I remember that I followed the instructions carefully each time, and it was impossible to get anything else but that wrong activation window in the installer once I am logged in to my Microsoft account.

Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024! | Free 1-month trial?

Endre Both — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 10:27:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024!
Poster: Endre Both
Post title: Free 1-month trial?

Microsoft offers a free trial of Office 365, how about using that while you sort out the problems with your purchase? You may need to set up a new Microsoft account.

Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024! | Old version?

Charlie Bavington — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 15:04:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024!
Poster: Charlie Bavington
Post title: Old version?

When I installed Office 2024 (see my reply to your previous post on the subject last week), it didn't over-write my previous version of Office, and I could still open that previous version.
Any chance you can do the same? Would that help with your projects at least?

(Sorry, no advice on how to deal with resellers - I did see some reseller offers when I bought Office 2024 and I also saw an internet full of tales of woe from people who couldn't get such copies to work, and sorry to say it looks a little like yours could just be another such tale.... Good luck though.)

Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024! | Try Amazon

Arabic & More — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 09:53:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024!
Poster: Arabic & More
Post title: Try Amazon

Sorry I can't help with the above, but can you perhaps purchase the program from Amazon as a download while you are trying to solve these other problems? Not sure about the details, but it might require you to remove the other program from your computer in the meantime (if it causes a conflict). I don't want to lead you in the wrong direction, but I have purchased MS Word from Amazon in the past when I needed quick access to the software.

Also, tell your clients that you are having technical issues as this might buy you some time. Hopefully they will be understanding!

[Edited at 2025-11-27 09:58 GMT]

[Edited at 2025-11-27 09:58 GMT]

Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024!

Fredrik Pettersson — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 04:34:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Need urgent help with advice how to activate my Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024!
Poster: Fredrik Pettersson

I bought the 100 percent guaranteed genuine license one week ago from this retailer in Sweden:

This is the exact URL I used for the purchase:

[url removed]

It says explicitly on their website above: "Authorized retailer. Certified distributor in Scandinavia. Avoid pirate copies.". When you click on that text, you get to a whole web page where they give details about this:

[url removed]

The price is fine, 1,990 SEK. It's for the desktop version, which is just what I needed.

But I received wrong installation instructions from the beginning:

1️⃣ Gå till setup.office.com (Go to setup.office.com)
2️⃣ Logga in med ditt Microsoft-konto eller skapa ett nytt (Log in with your Microsoft account or create a new account)
3️⃣ Ange din produktnyckel och följ instruktionerna för att installera Office (Enter your product key/license key and follow the instructions to install Office)

For the desktop version of MS Office, it should never be installed from setup.office.com but these instructions should instead be followed:

Endast Office 365/Microsoft Online aktiveras på setup.office.com.
Aktivering av Office 2016/2019/2021/2024 (Pro Plus, LTSC, Standard, Retail):
- Installera Office via filen du laddat ner.
- Öppna t.ex. Word.
- Gå till Arkiv/Konto/Aktivera produkt.
- Ange din produktnyckel.
- Aktivering sker direkt i programmet.
-Only Office 365/Microsoft Online is activated at setup.office.com.
Activation of Office 2016/2019/2021/2024 (Pro Plus, LTSC, Standard, Retail):
- Install Office via the file you downloaded.
- Open for instance Word.
- Go to File (archive)/Account/Activate product
- Enter your product key (license key).
- Activation takes place in the software itself.

But I have never been able to download any MS Office installation file from my Microsoft account that doesn't include to launch exactly the same installer as the one from setup.office.com!

I have a Microsoft account since many years, at least since the past 15 years. The strange thing is that I always use the correct password (I copy and paste it from my text file for my Microsoft account), and my password is accepted the first time I run the installer. Later though, exactly the same password is not accepted by Microsoft, neither when I log in from within Word in the installer nor when I try to log in directly at [url removed] The error message I then get is this:

"You've tried to sign in too many times with an incorrect account or password."

I tried in Chrome incognito window also, but get the same error message there also.

Here is an American who experiences the same problems as I do:

[url removed]

I travel frequently since the past 12 years and never visit my native country Sweden any longer. Could this has anything to do with the problem of signing in to my Microsoft account (which, I think, I created in Norway many years ago, around the millennium shift)? So far, I have lived in about 30 countries for longer or shorter periods.

Now you might say that "just call DigiMart's customer service". Firstly, there is a Dutch phone number that I found for them, but it does not work. And secondly, I sent email to their support more than 48 hours ago and still have not received any reply. Although it says I might have to wait up to 72 hours before I receive any response from them. I also tried to find any way to contact Microsoft in Sweden, but have not found any way.

I have two big projects, one worth 1,680 EUR and the other worth 1,380 EUR, that I am just about to lose. My only chance to keep these two projects is to find a way to work without my MS Office in SDL Trados Studio 2022 (both projects are for SDL Trados Studio 2022). For one project, the source files are .xml, for the other project the source files are .pdf, which I think will be saved to .docx when finished.

I could perhaps rent a computer with MS Office preinstalled. Or I could create a new Microsoft account (or reset the password) and then use Word online, although I'm not 100 percent certain it would work.

I have not gotten into a tight corner of searching for a solution and trying what works and keeping my two customers updated about my progress. I don't have many hours left before I will lose the two jobs worth a total of 3,060 EUR.

Should I choose MS Office 2021 or MS Office 2024? | if it helps

Charlie Bavington — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 16:49:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Should I choose MS Office 2021 or MS Office 2024?
Poster: Charlie Bavington
Post title: if it helps

My old version of Office (very old!) recently started misbehaving so I decided it was time to upgrade.
I didn't know about 2021, so I was choosing between Office 365 and 2024. After a very quick trial of 365, I've chosen Office 2024.
It does have one strange bug; in Excel, it would crash when trying to use font features such as colours or bold. The cure in my case was to select "Print to PDF" as the default printer. This is a known "feature" and cure.

So far so good with memoQ (I say that, hoping not to jinx it as I've just started a 24k words Word document).

I would imagine 2021 probably is more stable by now just by virtue of longevity. ChatGPT can't be trusted to tell me the number of 'r' in strawberry so I sure as hell wouldn't turn to it for software advice :)

Should I choose MS Office 2021 or MS Office 2024?

Fredrik Pettersson — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 19:01:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Should I choose MS Office 2021 or MS Office 2024?
Poster: Fredrik Pettersson

Both the service center for my laptop brand and ChatGPT said that MS Office 2024 is full of bugs. ChatGPT also said that MS Office 2024 causes major issues for MemoQ and SDL Trados Studio. Both adviced me to buy the 2021 version instead, which is much more stable according to them.

As for choosing the specific type of MS Office, should I choose MS Office Home & Student or MS Office Professional Plus or MS Office Business?

Getting rid of Copilot | Annoying extras

CafeTran Trainer — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 10:14:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Getting rid of Copilot
Poster: CafeTran Trainer
Post title: Annoying extras

For this reason I canceled the 365 subscription and bought a regular Office version for about 25 €.

Note: I had to remove Office 365 first.

[Edited at 2025-11-12 10:15 GMT]

Getting rid of Copilot

ibz — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 09:45:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Getting rid of Copilot
Poster: ibz

I'm having an issue with Office 365/Copilot. I disabled the feature in Word under Settings, but since today, it keeps popping up again!
I switched my subscription to Classic in February, but as it seems, this change won't be implemented until February 2026. Any suggestions on how to get rid of this unwanted feature are highly appreciated.
Thanks!

Word formatting: cannot shunt text | I shortened the line to fit

Andy S — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 15:03:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Word formatting: cannot shunt text
Poster: Andy S
Post title: I shortened the line to fit

Thanks, Joe, for your suggestion.

Being pressed for time, I simply edited the text to fit on one line.

Word formatting: cannot shunt text | Select just that line?

Joe France — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 13:52:00 +0000

Forum: Office applications
Topic: Word formatting: cannot shunt text
Poster: Joe France
Post title: Select just that line?

Impossible to say, really, without seeing the document first-hand. But have you tried selecting the line in question with and then editing the indents for that line only? That should prevent any changes to other parts of the text.

I assume you've also got the hidden characters switched on, so you can see any other formatting/breaks that could be causing this?