Pseudo Translate

Pseudo Translate replaces the text with an imitation of a translation. It shows localization problems before any real translation: text that is not in the resources, text that does not fit, and characters the application cannot display. Pseudo Translate is available in Professional and higher.

Choose Project > Translate Using > Pseudo Translate for the whole project, or Translate Using > Pseudo Translate in the shortcut menu of the Navigation pane or the Translation Editor. Pseudo-translations are written into the current target language. If items already have translations, Localizer asks whether to overwrite them.

Pseudo Translate Expert

Simulate translation

Replaces characters with characters of other alphabets that look similar, for example a with à or å, so the text stays readable. Select a Predefined character set or enter a Custom one.

Expansion

Makes the text longer by the percentage you set with Expand text by. Translated text is often longer than English, so expanded text shows controls that are too small.

Modifications

• Replacement text — replace the text completely.

• Pre-text characters and Post-text characters — add markers at the start and end of each string. A string shown without its markers is put together by the program at run time, or comes from somewhere other than the resources.

The Preview shows the pseudo translation of a test text with the current settings.

After pseudo-translation

Create the localized files and run the application. It should work exactly as the original. If it crashes, use Crash Finder to find the string that causes it.

Pseudo-translations get the Auto status. Delete them before the real translation, or use a separate target language for testing.

From the command line: -pseudo and -pseudoexpand:N. See Command line interface.

See also Localizability Testing and Validation.