This feature is available from the Essential plan and above.
With the Ad hoc documents project type in Lokalise, you can upload, translate, and download DOCX, PPTX, IDML, and HTML files.
This project type helps translate emails, articles, user guides, legal documents, and ad-hoc content snippets.
Project type differences
The document-type project editor on Lokalise has several distinctions from its Web and mobile project counterparts:
It allows for the previewing of translations, although this feature is unavailable for segmented projects.
A distinct header is utilized to delineate the keys for each file.
The preservation of layout, formatting, and embedded images is ensured.
Individual keys are generated for different text elements, such as headers and paragraphs.
The addition of new keys (paragraphs) or the deletion of existing ones through the editor is not possible. Any layout modifications must be applied to the original file, which should then be re-uploaded to Lokalise for translation memory to reinstate translations.
The display of keys follows the sequence of the originally uploaded file, with no option for custom sorting within the editor.
There is no integration capability with content management systems.
The modification of key names, descriptions, and similar attributes is restricted.
Getting started
To get started, open your projects dashboard, click New project, and choose the Ad hoc documents type:
Enter the project name, choose the base language (the one you'll be translating from), and one or more target languages (the ones you'll be translating into). Once you are ready, click Create project:
Now you can upload your documents to the project!
Uploading the documents
Open your newly created project and proceed to the Upload page. Choose a file you want to upload and adjust the uploading options.
Remember that in document files, headers and paragraphs are accounted for as keys. In other words, one paragraph equals one key.
When uploading multiple language versions of the same document that exhibit slight layout variances, such as missing paragraphs, Lokalise endeavors to accurately align the content. This process is designed to avoid the generation of unnecessary or "weird" extra keys. For a deeper understanding of this functionality, please refer to the Translation alignment article.
Editor overview
The project editor allows you to add new languages, perform translations, and preview files. Each file is represented by a header and related keys. Editing, searching, and applying bulk actions are possible across multiple files simultaneously.
Files are ordered by the upload time, with the most recent files shown first. Keys have a fixed order and are sorted the same way as they appear in the original file.
Selecting files for the editor
Click the Files button in the top menu to open the Files widget.
Here you can:
Select which files should be currently visible in the editor.
Delete files from the project. Note that it will take several seconds to delete a file, and no progress indicator will be shown.
Search for specific files.
Sort files in the file selector. Note that this sorting won't be applied to the order of files in the editor.
Previewing files
Previewing HTML files
You can preview HTML files by clicking the Open preview link in the file header:
A new window will open, displaying the HTML file with the complete layout, styles, and images. Note that no scripts will be executed in the preview, so content hidden in sliders or collapsible panels may not be visible in the preview.
You can see how translations would look in the file by changing the language in the dropdown within the preview window. Untranslated parts of the file will contain the value of the base language. The best results can be achieved if styles and images are either inlined or have absolute links.
Previewing DOCX, PPTX, and other non-HTML files
Please note that this feature is not available for segmented projects.
To preview non-HTML files, switch to the Bilingual view and click Download file:
This will download a translated file for preview. If keys are empty, then a base language value will be inserted into the target file (so you can preview the original file by downloading a target file while all keys are empty).
The Download file button is disabled by default, but you can enable it in the project settings. To do this, click More > Settings, proceed to the Quality assurance section, and tick the Allow contributors to download target files for preview checkbox:
Project dashboard overview
Ad hoc documents type projects are displayed similarly to Web and mobile projects. In the dashboard, you can see the overall progress of your project as well as that of the languages. However, there is a small change: you can track the progress of each document in the project separately. Additionally, you can rename and remove individual documents.
Images and layout
Lokalise enables you to upload documents without altering the document structure. The complete file layout and all images will be uploaded to Lokalise, even though they will not be displayed inside the editor. You will get the translated document with layout, formatting, and images back when you export the file.