Forum: Wordfast support
Topic: Working with Wordfast Classic and Excel
Poster: Lori Cirefice
Post title: The method I use
I work with Excel files and WFC all the time, and this is my tried and true method :-)
Open the Excel file, and copy and paste the columns directly into Word – this results in a Word table that you translate as usual.
TIP: If you have many columns with lots of content, try splitting it up into smaller chunks (one Word file for columns A-C, another for D-F, another for G-I, etc.) Otherwise, you won't be able to see your segments very well on the screen as they will be too narrow!
TIP: If the document is really long, try splitting it up into chunks of 100 lines. I have noticed that Wordfast slows down when translating REALLY long tables, so shorter tables seem to work better for me.
When translation is finished and polished, clean up and update the TM.
Copy and paste the cleaned target columns back to the excel file, overwriting the source (or in column B etc depending on client requirements).
TIP: you may need to reset fonts/sizes and remove borders after pasting back
TIP: be sure to double check that you have the same number of lines/columns
Potential Issue to be aware of and solution
If there were line breaks within the original cells before you pasted into Word, you will not be able to paste those cells back into Excel at the end of translation. Excel will think that each line break is a separate cell, resulting in a big mess!
Now calm down and try this – it works. Thanks to Carlos Montilla for posting this solution!
On your clean Word file, Find and Replace ^l with XCXCXC (or any other strange string of letters).
Now copy the text from Word and paste in Excel. Make sure you still have the same amount of columns and lines as the original text.
Using the Excel Find and Replace, replace XCXCXC with Alt+010 (with the cursor in the "replace" field, hold down the 'Alt' button and type the numbers '010'. The field will remain blank, it looks like nothing happened, but in fact, it's there – just blank)
Now you have your text back in Excel, with line breaks as they should be!
Topic: Working with Wordfast Classic and Excel
Poster: Lori Cirefice
Post title: The method I use
I work with Excel files and WFC all the time, and this is my tried and true method :-)
Open the Excel file, and copy and paste the columns directly into Word – this results in a Word table that you translate as usual.
TIP: If you have many columns with lots of content, try splitting it up into smaller chunks (one Word file for columns A-C, another for D-F, another for G-I, etc.) Otherwise, you won't be able to see your segments very well on the screen as they will be too narrow!
TIP: If the document is really long, try splitting it up into chunks of 100 lines. I have noticed that Wordfast slows down when translating REALLY long tables, so shorter tables seem to work better for me.
When translation is finished and polished, clean up and update the TM.
Copy and paste the cleaned target columns back to the excel file, overwriting the source (or in column B etc depending on client requirements).
TIP: you may need to reset fonts/sizes and remove borders after pasting back
TIP: be sure to double check that you have the same number of lines/columns
Potential Issue to be aware of and solution
If there were line breaks within the original cells before you pasted into Word, you will not be able to paste those cells back into Excel at the end of translation. Excel will think that each line break is a separate cell, resulting in a big mess!
Now calm down and try this – it works. Thanks to Carlos Montilla for posting this solution!
On your clean Word file, Find and Replace ^l with XCXCXC (or any other strange string of letters).
Now copy the text from Word and paste in Excel. Make sure you still have the same amount of columns and lines as the original text.
Using the Excel Find and Replace, replace XCXCXC with Alt+010 (with the cursor in the "replace" field, hold down the 'Alt' button and type the numbers '010'. The field will remain blank, it looks like nothing happened, but in fact, it's there – just blank)
Now you have your text back in Excel, with line breaks as they should be!