Glossaries

Overview

Glossaries ensure consistent translation of specific terms, names, and phrases across your content. They’re essential for brand consistency, technical terminology, and product names.

Creating a Glossary

1. Navigate to Glossaries from the sidebar (under Translation).
2. Click New Glossary or the + button.
3. Enter a descriptive name for your glossary.
4. Select the languages this glossary will support (source and target languages).
5. Choose how to populate your glossary:
   • Empty: Start with a blank glossary.
   • Prefill with AI Extraction: Automatically extract terms from sample text.

Adding Terms Manually

1. Open your glossary.
2. Click Add Terms.
3. Select the language pair you’re adding terms for.
4. Enter the source term and its translation.
5. Optionally add a definition or context note.
6. Optionally choose a Letter case mode (see Letter Case Matching). It applies to the language you’re adding the term in; automatically translated entries start with Auto.
7. Click Add Term.
8. Repeat for additional terms.

AI Extraction

Extract terms automatically from your existing content:

1. Open your glossary (or create a new one with “Prefill with AI Extraction”).
2. Click Add Terms.
3. Select the Extract tab.
4. Paste sample text (up to 150,000 characters) that contains terms you want to extract.
5. Click Extract.
6. Review the AI-suggested terms:
   • Accept terms that are correct.
   • Edit terms that need adjustment.
   • Skip terms that aren’t relevant.
7. Selected terms are automatically added to your glossary.

Best practices for extraction:

• Use representative content that includes your key terminology.
• Longer text samples typically yield better results.
• Review and refine extracted terms before accepting.

Editing and Managing Terms

• Edit a term: Click on any term in the glossary to modify it.
• Delete a term: Remove individual terms as needed.
• Bulk import: Import terms via CSV for large glossaries.
• Export: Download your glossary as CSV for backup or migration.

Letter Case Matching

Glossary QA (the term counter) checks whether a text or a translation uses your glossary terms. Capitalization matters for some terms and not for others: “IT” (information technology) isn’t the pronoun “it”, and “mW” (milliwatt) isn’t “MW” (megawatt), but “Email” at the start of a sentence is still “email”. The Letter case column tells glossary QA which is which.

The setting belongs to each language of a term, so English and German entries of the same term can use different modes. It only affects glossary QA; it doesn’t change how translations are generated.

Mode	How it matches	Use for	Example
Auto (default)	Uppercase letters must match; lowercase letters may be either case. If only the first letter is capitalized, a lowercase occurrence is flagged as ambiguous for review	Most terms	“IT” ≠ “it” · “term” = “Term” = “TERM” · “Apple” → “apple”: ambiguous
Capitals must match	Uppercase letters must match; lowercase letters may be either case	Brand and product names	“Apple” ≠ “apple” · “iPhone” = “IPHONE”
Exact	Every letter must match exactly	Units, symbols, code	“mW” ≠ “MW” · “pH” ≠ “PH”
Ignore case	Any capitalization counts, never ambiguous	Ordinary words that can’t be confused with other words	“email” = “Email” = “EMAIL”

In every mode, accents must match, except in text written entirely in capitals.

To change the mode of a term:

1. Open your glossary and select the language tab.
2. Click the edit (pencil) button on the term’s row. To change another language’s entry, expand the row first and edit that language’s line.
3. Choose a mode in the Letter case column.
4. Click the check mark to save.

Click the info icon next to the Letter case column header for a short description of each mode.

Using Glossaries in Translation

In the Playground

1. Open the Playground.
2. Select your source and target languages.
3. Choose your glossary from the glossary dropdown (only matching language pairs are shown).
4. Run your translation - glossary terms are automatically enforced.
5. If a term isn’t applied correctly, update your glossary and re-run.

In API Calls

Include the glossary ID in your API request to apply terms programmatically.

Glossary Status

Glossaries have status indicators:

• OK: Ready to use
• CREATING: Being set up
• UPDATING: Changes in progress
• DELETING: Removal in progress
• ERROR: An issue occurred

Wait for status to be OK before using in translations.

Tips

1. Keep terms specific: Generic terms may match unintentionally.
2. Use base forms: Add “car” rather than “cars” - the system handles inflections.
3. Regular maintenance: Review and update glossaries as your terminology evolves.
4. Test your glossary: Use the Playground to verify terms are applied correctly.
5. Organize by domain: Create separate glossaries for different products or domains.
6. Version control: Consider duplicating glossaries before major changes for rollback capability.