Yes, memoQ 2.0 and later is a .NET based application and will run just fine under any Windows version provided that the .NET Framework 2.0 is installed.
Yes, you can safely run memoQ (all versions) using the Parallels Desktop for Mac on all new Intel-based Macs. Note that you can also run it on a virtual machine (using VMWare, Virtual PC, Xen or any other virtualization solution) under almost any OS, as the activation feature doesn't require any dongle.
While memoQ works fine with all versions of Windows Vista, there is a known installer issue under Vista Home. If you receive an "access denied" type of error message when registering or creating a translation memory or a term base, follow the steps below.
First, make hidden and protected files visible:
Second, set appropriate permissions for the memoQ folder under All Users:
Now you can start memoQ and check if the problem has been resolved.
Full support isn't official yet, but you can safely rename your docx document into .zip, as you will notice, the actual content is stored into XML files: the DOCX format is very close to the now standard ODF (Open Document Format), and memoQ does support XML files.
If you want to work with file formats supported by SDL Trados but not supported by memoQ, you can do that through TagEditor's native format, TTX. However, to enable SDL Trados to export the file back to the original format you have to pre-segment the file and work on an already segmented TTX file.
To pre-segment the file you need to do the following:
Now import the pre-segmented TTX files into memoQ, and you can start working.
Note: memoQ 2.1 and later have full TTX support, but there is a workaround method to work on TTX files using memoQ 2.0.
The error is: Exception ocurred while initializing the installation: System.BadImage Format Exception: The Format of the File 'memoQLiteSetup.CustomInstaller.dll' is invalid.”
This is because of a conflict between the different versions of the .NET Framework. The procedure below is guaranteed to work:
Yes. See Using memoQ on a different computer in the Activation chapter.
See Changing the serial number in the Activation chapter.
Note: This information applies to memoQ version 2.3 and the Windows Vista operating system.
If the installation fails when you try upgrading or updating your copy of memoQ, or uninstallation fails when you attempt to remove memoQ from your computer, you can remove memoQ manually by following the steps below:
Important: This procedure will not harm your data (projects, documents, translation memories, term bases or settings). Your activation data (licenses) will also remain intact.
Note: This information applies to memoQ version 2.3 and Windows Vista (Home Editions)
IMPORTANT: This information does not apply to version 2.4 and up because these versions have a new setup program that solves the above problems.
When using virtual desktop software like VirtuaWin, desktop switching can cause dialogs of memoQ to close without warning. Fortunately, there is a workaround for recent versions of VirtuaWin.
This will cause VirtuaWin to handle memoQ dialogs differently, avoiding the problem of abruptly closed dialogs. It is not yet known whether similar fixes are possible for other virtual desktop managers like Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager.
You probably want to create regular back-ups of your resources (projects, translation memories, term bases, settings, etc.) for disaster recovery. As memoQ stores resources as files, it is fairly easy to create backups by simply copying folders or files. The below instructions let you create backups that you can quickly restore if your resources become corrupted. The backups created this way are not meant for "long term" usage though: trying to restore a backup created in an older version might cause problems.
Before backing up or restoring any files, make sure that memoQ is not running. memoQ might hold some files open or may even be writing into one of them, which might prevent a successful backup or restore.
You need to back up the following folders:
For projects, translation memories, term bases, and filter configurations, the default storage paths can be changed in memoQ under Tools > Options > Appearance, Locations. If you have changed the default paths for any of the above, make a backup of your new paths.
If you are using a server solution, it is also advisable to regularly back up the SQL database that contains information about the users, groups, permissions and projects. By default, it is found in the following folder, which also contains the project folder and some configuration files that you may also want to back up:
The SQL database file and the transaction log are stored under the names memoQServer.mdf and memoQServer_log.ldf. Both are needed for a successful backup and restore. During the server installation you might have changed the path where the server database is stored. If you did change it, make sure that you back up the new path as well. The folder where server project documents are stored can also be changed from the Server Administrator, so if you are not using the default folder, back up the actual project folder as well.
Before the backup or restore operation, you will need to stop the memoQ Server service and the service of the SQL Server instance pertaining to the memoQ Server (in that order). Failure to do so may stop you from successfully finishing the operation, or might even leave the server in an unworkable state. After the backup or restore operation, start the SQL instance service and the memoQ Server service (in that order) again.
Never try to restore a database backup if you have upgraded your server to a newer version since the backup was taken. The database schema often gets modified between versions, and a database created by an older version might not work with the current version of the server. If you need to restore a database that was created in an older version of memoQ Server, you first need to uninstall you current version of memoQ Server, and install the version the database was created in. After this, you can restore the backup of the database, and install the current version. The installer will upgrade the restored database to the current version.
By following the above instructions, your backups might contain the license files of memoQ and/or memoQ Server. However, if there are frequent licensing related changes (e.g. you are using mobile licenses or have aquired new licenses recently), it might not be a good idea to restore earlier versions of your license files when you restore a backup. In this case, do not include the license files in your backup packages. (Or, if they are already backed up, do not restore them.) License files are named LicenseNN.dat (where N is a digit, e.g. License11.dat, License02.dat etc.). They can be found in the following folders:
memoQ:
memoQ Server:
If you have licensing problems after restoring a backup, update your licenses online first. To do this, click Activation (or Server Activation for the server) in the Help menu, and click Update licenses online. If this does not solve the problem, turn to Kilgray support.
Yes. memoQ uses the spell checker of Microsoft Office for this in the background. If you are using a language version of Microsoft Office 2000 that does not provide built-in support for the language you are translating into, you can simply copy the required files and Office will support that language as well. However, this is not enough when you try to use memoQ spell checking. Because Microsoft Office does not automatically install some elements, you need the original installation CD to proceed.
This is not an issue with Microsoft Office 2003 or newer.
Some users have experienced the following issue. When they confirm a translated segment, some of the Central/Eastern European diacritical characters get corrupt. For example in Czech "ř" changes to "ø", "č" changes to "è". This happens on computers that ever had an early version of Trados installed (any version before 6.5). Uninstalling or updating Trados does not solve the problem. Trados used to have a problem with displaying special characters of Central/Eastern European languages. For a long time, Trados did not issue a fix for this problem, but advised their users to work around it by changing a setting in the registry. This made the problem go away in Trados, but it is still causing problems in other applications like memoQ. The solution is to change this registry setting back to the original value.
Yes, this is possible by using a special font for editing your translations in memoQ. For details, see Showing spaces and other special characters.
No, that is not possible. The way {tags} work in memoQ is, they stand for something that constitutes the structure of the original document (the "skeleton"). Without that skeleton, there is simply no way memoQ can restore a correct document at export. Not copying tags and allowing export would simply result in a file with DOC extension (for Word DOC's) that can do one thing: crash Word when you open them...
However, Word documents will sometimes show tags that clearly do not stand for anything sensible (especially if the DOC was created from a PDF file). Such tags are also called rogue codes. For some ideas on how to get rid of them, see Getting rid of codes in Word documents in the Tips and Tricks chapter.
Among other things, the auto-translatables function in memoQ can be used to convert numbers from one language format to another. For example, English uses the comma as a thousands separator, and the full stop as a decimal separator. Italian uses them the opposite way. With the proper auto-translatable rules set, memoQ will provide the "localized" version of numbers found in the source segment. These localized numbers are shown in the Translation results list. These auto-translated hits can be inserted quickly into the translation just like hits from translation memories or term bases. Auto-translatables are also used by the fragment assembly function.
Auto-translatables can be set at the project level (in the settings page of the project) or the global level for every project with the same source and target languages (in Tools menu > Options > Auto-translatables).
English to Danish/Dutch/Croatian/German/Romanian/Slovenian/Spanish
Below are the rules to enter for a project translated from English to the above (and possibly other) languages. It will localize numbers containing decimal separators or thousands separators (not both). The rules need to be entered exactly as below in the exact same order to ensure that they work correctly. For information on entering auto-translatable rules, see the memoQ help topics under Language specific settings > Auto-translations.
Rule 1 (changes 1.234 to 1,234)
Auto-translatable rule:
(\d+)\.(\d+)
Replace order rule:
$1,$2
Explanation: If a sequence of digits is followed by a full stop and another sequence of digits, this rule will replace the full stop with a comma.
Rule 2 (changes 12,345,678 to 12.345.678)
Auto-translatable rule:
([\d]{1,3}),?(\d\d\d),?(\d\d\d)
Replace order rule:
$1.$2.$3
Explanation: If a sequence consisting of 1 to 3 digits is followed by a comma, which is followed by three digits, another comma and thrre digits again, the rule will replace the commas with full stops.
Rule 3 (changes 12,345 to 12.345)
Auto-translatable rule:
([\d]{2,3}),?(\d\d\d)
Replace order rule:
$1.$2
Explanation: If a sequence consisting of 2 to 3 digits is followed by a comma, which is followed by three digits, the rule will replace the comma with a full stop.
If you want to copy large blocks of text from the source to the target during the translation process, memoQ may currently hang or crash if the Quality Assurance module is running in the background.
Go to the Project QA Settings in the main settings area and make certain that none of the boxes above the tabs are checked. Wait until you really get to the point where you really want to start doing quality assurance checking before you actually start to run the QA features.
For some languages, you may want to disable the case conversions in the "Translation Results" pane.
For certain Word documents, memoQ will show superfluous tags that apparently serve no purpose. Once you import your document, there's no way to delete these tags; the best you can do is to insert them by pressing F8 or put them at the end of the target segment by hitting Alt+F8.
There are several possible ways to reduce such tags prior to importing:
These and other methods are discussed here: http://www.necco.ca/dv/word.htm#Rogue_codes
Some of these pre-import tips and others have been automated in a set of macros that I've assembled in a Word template with a custom toolbar (CodeZapper_2.3). This template also includes a few other pre- and post-processing macros that may be useful. It was principally intended for use with Deja Vu but memoQ users may also find it useful in some circumstances. You can find it in the files section (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/memoQ/files/). Dave Turner
More ideas on removing rogue codes from Jim Wardell:
If Word files cause rogue codes in memoQ, pre-edit them looking for the problems suggested above by Dave. Also:
Make sure autohypenation is deactivated in the entire Word file.
Use Find and Replace to remove all optional hyphens.
Make sure the Word setting "Hyphenate words in CAPS" is off.
Sometimes rogue codes are caused when the font size in the source PDF text hovers between two integer sizes. The OCR output (which even allows half-point sizes) then can contain embedded font size changes (e.g. 11 pt. --> 11.5 pt. --> 11 pt --> 10.5 pt.). If you get a lot of these, and the Word file itself contains several font sizes that you want to retain, you may need to go through and select the continuous font-size passages and apply the font size you want to use (in the above case, for example, perhaps Arial 11 pt.). A slicker, more professional way to do this would be to apply a style definition to such passages. Your style definition would also include No Autohypenation and normal character spacing.
If your source document does not contain bold or italics, select the entire file and change all to Bold + Italics. Then select the entire file again and remove the bold and italics.
If you are scanning PDF files using OCR software (and therefore are the one who created the rogue codes in the first place!), take a close look at the detailed settings options that were in effect when you exported from OCR to Word. Only use those settings that you need, the others may be generating rogue codes.
The Arial Unicode font is installed by OmniPage. OmniPage inserts tags around umlauts in Word files. I've solved this problem by removing the Arial Unicode font from my system. It's also a good idea when using OCR software to use font matching to restrict the fonts that are allowed in OCR output, e.g. to Times New Roman and Arial.
If your client offers to convert PDF files to Word for you, consider that he/she may be using a cheap PDF converter program to do this and might not have the slightest clue what he/she is doing. In this case, you're better off getting the PDF file yourself and using high-quality OCR software to do the conversion yourself. Be aware that PDF converters, even the best ones, are likely to cause more problems with rogue codes and formatting than professional quality OCR software. You get what you pay for. There also are major differences between the two leading professional-grade OCR programs in their ability to reduce rogue codes and produce TM-friendly formatting. Test both carefully and see which gives the more TM-friendly results in your situation.
The suggestions offered by Dave and myself should help you eliminate nearly all rogue codes, however if you are still getting too many, open MQ and notice where a given rogue code occurs, then open the offending file in Word at the same time. Try selecting the characters around the offending location and check for any changes in settings. If you learn something useful, please register as a Wikibooks author and add them to this page.
Although this is not a documented feature, memoQ can enter non-breaking spaces useful e.g. in the case of French quotation marks. To enter a non-breaking space press ctrl+shift+space instead of space.
Sometimes, when your client sends you a TM using a specific source language (ex. EN-CA), you may import your TTX files into a project using another regional language (ex. EN-GB) only to discover later that, when you export the resulting TTX, the source language has changed! This may lead to problems, as TagEditor refuses to edit a TTX using language settings different than the TM is is currently associated with.
In fact, memoQ sets the source and target language of your TTX files to those chosen for the current project. You may sometimes want to turn that to your advantage and deliberately chose whatever source and target language you see fit.
To do that, proceed as follows:
And here you are, you now have fully working bilingual TTX files you can open using TagEditor with the source/target language you chose!