Excel and Powerpoint Wordfast Classic

This feature should be tested before use, because Wordfast may have difficulties initiating the necessary Ms-Office links.

Note that complex or ill-written PowerPoint presentation may cause Wordfast to stall. Those are presentations, where, for example, many small textboxes have been used to mimick a table layout; where too many pictures have been piled up on the same page; note that embedded objects (Excel spreasheets for example) will not be offered for translation: the embeeded object must be translated with the original tool, then reimported in the presentation.

1. Start Excel (or PowerPoint or Access), open the sheet (or presentation or table), place the cursor in the cell (or slide/shape or record/field) where the translation should begin (note: do not actually enter the cell/shape/field, as when you want to edit it - just position the cursor on it).
2. Go back to Ms-Word. Create a new, empty document. Start a Wordfast translation session on the empty Ms-Word document.

Wordfast will "pull" translatable items from the PowerPoint presentation or from the Excel worksheet. You translate them one after the next in Ms-Word. When an item has been translated, it is pasted back into the PowerPoint, or Excel, document. You only work and translate inside Ms-Word.

If you resume translation after having closed the translation session, re-open the last segment in the Ms-Word document and click the Next segment icon. This allows Wordfast to "know" from which slide, shape or record to resume working.

With Excel, you can translate only one sheet at a time. If you need to translate other sheets, start a new translation session on a new, empty document for each sheet.

Note:

1. There should be no read/write restrictions on the remote document.
2. This feature can be combined with Wordfast's Translate tool, Xtrans! tool, or the MT facility.
3. With Excel, if you wish to exclude columns/lines from the translation, give them a width/height of 0 in Excel.
4. With PowerPoint, I recommend using Word 2000, or a later version, which are compatible with PowerPoint's colour scheme (with Word 97, you risk reducing the number of colours used in the PPT presentation).

If you wish to exclude slide notes fom the translation, activate "NoPowerPointNotes" in Pandora's box.

1. A document used to translate an Excel/PowerPoint/Access file is linked to that application. Use the Wordfast menu option "Miscellaneous/Unlink" on a document to unlink it, or "Relink" to re-link it to the source application and file. This may be useful if, for example, the translated file has to be revised in the absence of the source application.

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