Character Limits

Owned by Aaron Sakievich (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Feb 28, 2024 by Kenny Teves
3 min read

Overview

It is common for website and software developers to specify character limits for various fields. Translations should be as close to these character limits as possible to ensure field validation is maintained. Localization engineers can upload XLIFF2 files to the TMS and provide character limits in the metadata fields.

File Structure

Today we only support this functionality with XLIFF2 files using importer version m41. Your XLIFF2 file must include the character limit in the metadata section of the segment.

Your character limit must be greater than zero, or it will be ignored.

<mda:metadata> <mda:metaGroup> <mda:meta type="character_limit">182</mda:meta> </mda:metaGroup> </mda:metadata>

Editing Character Limits in the TMS

After you upload the XLIFF file, you can adjust the character limits for each segment on the Segment tab. This change will apply to all the targets on the document.

You can add character limits to segments of any file type after you upload it.

 

Project Settings

By default, the Workbench provides linguists a warning if their translations exceed the character limit because it can be challenging to ensure all translations remain below the specified character limit. However, when strict enforcement is necessary for your use organization’s case, you can change the Prevent saving translations that exceed segment-level character limits project setting to prevent translations from being saved if they exceed the character limit.

This segment level character limit applies to linguists and the Enterprise System. Translations created from any bulk or individual action that can result in a saved translation must be at or under the character limit to be saved.

E.g. if the system finds an Exact 100% match for a translation, but its characters exceed the limit, it will not be leveraged.

Character limits in the segment

Our Workbench makes it easy for linguists to compare their character count to the character limit.

  • Character limits are displayed next to the target character count in the active segment.

  • If linguists exceed the character limit, the character count and character limit fields will turn red, and a warning icon will be displayed.

  • The Workbench will prevent linguists from saving a translation if the Prevent saving translations that exceed segment-level character limits project setting is set to “Yes.”

  • Tags are not included in the character count. Character limits apply to anything that is a Unicode grapheme.