Auto-Propagation in Wordfast Pro

When you are lucky, the file you have to translate has repetitions! However, what happens when you translate a segment one way and then decide to change it later? This is how Auto-Propagation can help you. Basically, if you change a segment that appears in the document somewhere else, it will change the other occurrence(s) as well.

Enabling Auto-Propagation

In Wordfast Pro, Auto-Propagation is enabled automatically.The Auto-Propagation option allows you to enable or disable this feature. Enabling the Auto-Propagation option will also allow you to leverage previous translation of repetitive content. To enable Auto-Propagation or modify preferences:

Auto-Propagation Preferences

1. In Wordfast Pro, open the project or the file for translation in your project.
2. Go to Preferences > Auto-Propagation.
3. The Auto-Propagation dialog box appears.
4. Make sure that "Enable Auto-Propagation for repetitions is enabled" is checked to automatically propagate translation based on previous translation completed in the file.
5. (Optional) Enable the following autopropagation options, if required:
   • Select 100% matches to overwrite 100% translation memory (TM) matches.
   • Select Fuzzy matches to overwrite partial translation memory matched.
   • Select Auto-propagated matches to overwrite all autopropagated matches. This means that if there are multiple segments that have the same content then editing one segment will auto propagate the change in all matching segments.
   • Select Edited segments to overwrite edited autopropagated matches. This means that if there are multiple segments that have the same content and the first and second repetitions are edited, then the following matching segments will be updated based on the second segment that was changed.
   • Select Machine Translated segments to overwrite machine translated content.
   • Select Committed segments to overwrite translated content that is committed to the TM.
6. Check boxes (optional) and click OK.

The Auto-Propagation option is now enabled or the preferences modified.

Disabling Auto-Propagation

In rare circumstances, when you cannot merge segments (poorly segmented IDML files or SDLXLIFF files), you may want to turn this off. For example, if you have the following four segments:

1. Marketing
2. Director
3. Finance
4. Director

That you translate into French as:

1. Directeur de
2. Marketing
3. Directeur de
4. Finance

With auto-propagation turned on, once you “translate” segment 4, it will auto-propagate to segment 2, replacing Marketing with Finance. To disable Auto-Propagation, repeat steps 1-3 and uncheck "Enable Auto-Propagation for repetitions".