Freelance translators and translation agencies often use TagEditor, among other options, to process all sorts of files: design files from InDesign, Quark, MS PowerPoint presentations or simple documents from Word, amongst others. It’s a favorite tool for translators, given how easy it is to use. Still, it’s normal that errors pop up when it’s time to open a file created in TagEditor. These errors can be experienced for different reasons: it is likely that a file won’t open because it was made in a version of MS Office that is not compatible with the version of Trados being used (as a result, this brings up various errors with filters, for example). Another problem could be that the file is damaged.
A typical error that happens when you open a TagEditor file has to do with the tag settings, where Trados will ask you to install a file with the extension .ini (the error will say “Tag settings file could not be found”) in order to open the document. Normally, this occurs with files from TagEditor created with .html or .xml extensions. To solve this problem, then, you must upload that .ini file, whether it be a standard file from Trados or a customizedfile provided by the client, in which case the .ttx (extension that refers to a TagEditor file) will open without problems.
But what is an .ini file? Its name comes from “Windows Initialization file.” They are configurations files, especially used for programs in Windows OS, but also used by Trados to formulate, for example, the tags structure of a document. As we’ve already mentioned above, this file can either be one customized by the client (if, for example, they wish to maintain a determined format for titles, subtitles, frames, etc.) or you can use the configurations file that Trados has as a default for .xml and .html files.
Either way, the use of an .ini file is essential to open an .xml or .html document in TagEditor. These documents make use of a lot of tags, so if an adequate .ini isn’t used, problems with structure and neatness may arise with the file.
(Versión en español: ¿Qué es un archivo .ini?)
