Changing Machines in Wordfast Pro

You have gotten a new machine, and you need to move your Wordfast Pro 5 work to it. Here are the details you need:

Installing and Licensing

Yes, you can license your new machine. However, you do NOT need the old license or install number; you cannot use either on the new machine. Actually, when you install Wordfast Pro 5 on a new machine, you will get a new Install Number that you can use to get a new license file. For more information about the licensing process, click here to check how to license Wordfast.

TXML files

TXML files are Wordfast Pro 3 bilingual translation files. They are located where you have saved them, usually in the same folder(s) as the original source documents. Just copy them to the new machines and open them in Wordfast Pro 3.

Translation Memories

As for the Translation Memory files, you will just need to know where you have saved them. You just need to copy the (*.txt) files so that you can save them on the new machine, then ADD them again in the new installation: Translation Memory menu > New/Select TM > ADD TM > Browse, and locate the TM (*.txt) file.

Glossaries

All that you need is to export your glossary and import it later:

• Terminology (menu) > New/Select Glossary.
• Click on Export button.
• From Glossary (dropdown menu), select the glossary you want to export.
• From Export type, keep it Tab-delimited text file (*.txt)
• Click on Browse to select the location where you want to save your glossary and give it a proper name.
• Save > OK - an "exported successfully" message should appear.
• Now, you can copy your .txt glossary you have just exported to use again in Wordfast.

To import the glossary to Wordfast Pro 5,

• Terminology (menu) > New/Select Glossary
• Click on Import button.
• From File Type, keep it Tab-delimited text file (*.txt).
• Click on Browse... to select the .txt glossary you want to import; Open.
• If this is the first time you use this glossary, keep the option Create new Glossary selected. If you want to update a glossary you already selected in WFP, check Import into existing glossary, select the existing glossary into which you want import the terms of the other glossary, and the way you want WFP to deal with source terms that already exist.
• A message will appear telling you about the number of terms that will be imported. An "imported successfully" message should appear.
• Now, you can use the imported glossary, as usual.

Projects and Preferences

The project files in Wordfast Pro 3 are located in the following folder:

PC: C:\Users\[username]\.wf_workspace

Mac: Macintosh HD/Users/[username]\.wf_workspace

Where [username] is the primary account of the user. Make a copy of that folder on the old machine. If you don’t see .wf_workspace on your Mac, search the internet for how to show hidden folders on Mac.

Also, if you are on a PC, make a copy of the following file:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Wordfast\wordfast.ini

After installing Wordfast Pro 3 on the new machine, restore the content of .wf_workspace you backed up above to C:\Users\[newusername]\.wf_workspace or Macintosh HD/Users/[newusername]\.wf_workspace, where [newusername] is the account of the user on the new machine. You may also want to restore wordfast.ini to C:\Program Files (x86)\Wordfast on the new machine.

If you want the TMs to be automatically linked to the projects on the new machine, you would have to transfer the TMs from the old machine to the new machine and the file paths would need to be identical. As it is not very likely that you will have identical file paths, it might be easier to follow the instructions under the TM section and simply re-add the TMs to the projects from within Wordfast. If you are a computer wizard, you could open the XML file in each project folder in the .wf_workspace and replace the localTM url's within the <TmConnections> </TmConnections> tags from the old machine with the new ones.

This should allow you to have the same setup on the new workstation as on the old one.

Troubleshooting Tip

If you cannot access your glossaries in Wordfast Pro 3 to Export them, you can use their backup copies. You can find them at a path like: C:\Users\USERNAME\.wf_workspace\glossaries

Note: USERNAME is the name of the user on your machine.

Copy all the TXT files found in the folder "glossaries" to be able to Import them back in the above-mentioned way.