Clients often send a list of terminology in Excel or in other formats that they commonly use. It is essential for the translation project manager and the translator to ensure that this terminology is used in the translation. Creating terminology files is not as complicated as it seems, because Transit’s TermStar provides an easy way of creating dictionaries from Excel files and other formats. You don’t have to be a technical expert to do this, with just a few steps you are all set to use the terminology alongside the translation. More terms can be added to the dictionary during the translation process and once the translation is complete, it can be exported in various formats to be sent back to the client. In this post, we will first show you how to create a database and a dictionary, and in subsequent posts we will show you how to import and export terminology in different formats into/from a TermStar database.

TermStar NXT stores terminology in dictionaries. Each dictionary is saved in a database. The database acts as a bookshelf for the dictionary as it can contain many dictionaries. This means that your dictionaries can be stored in an organised manner, and dictionaries containing terminology relating to a particular project may be stored in a separate database.

Create a database and dictionary from scratch

If no database has been created, you will first need to create one and then create as many dictionaries in the database as you wish. You can also create new dictionaries in an existing database. Although this sounds complicated, it is a very easy step-by-step process. So, let’s get started with creating a terminology database and creating dictionaries within the database.

Select Dictionaries/Databases > Create a new dictionary/database from the Dictionary option in the resource bar, as shown in the following image, in order to create a new database or a new dictionary within an existing database:
 

Let’s create a database from scratch and then a dictionary within the database. You can create two types of databases: an Access database or a Microsoft SQL Server database. In this post, we will see how to create an Access database, as this is the option that the majority of you will need to use.

Select Create a new database (see figure above) followed by Access Database (Access). Now select a location to save your database, as shown in the image below:

In the next step, you will be required to give a name to the new ODBC connection, which is a unique link to a database that physically exists. We advise you to give the same name to the database and the ODBC connection, as shown in the image below:

We will look how to use an ODBC connection in subsequent posts, as well as shortcuts where we will show you how to use TermStar dictionaries sent by the client. With this step, you have now created your database that can contain multiple dictionaries.

Now, give your new dictionary a name and click on Finish. For now, ignore the option Create empty database without dictionary.

You now have a new database and a dictionary contained within it. Stay tuned for our next post where we will show you how to import terminology from an Excel file.

Related blog posts about TermStar: 

• Adding terms to the dictionary
• Transferring terms from the dictionary
• Open at heart - Terminology exchange formats in TermStar NXT
• New terminology extraction in Transit NXT (1 of 2)
• New terminology extraction in Transit NXT (2 of 2)

More information about TermStar:

• TermStar NXT