Chapter 6. Project properties
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# Chapter 6. Project properties

## 1. Properties dialog

The Project → Properties... (Ctrl+E) dialog is used to define and modify the project folders and languages.

It is possible to modify the project properties during a translation session. Note that changes to the project setup may have some consequences, especially, when the project has already been started. Until you have some experience with OmegaT, it is safest to consider all settings final once the translation has started – unless of course you realize a major mistake has been made. See the section Preventing data loss for ways and means of protecting your work.

Figure 6.1. Project properties window

It contains:

- An area for setting project source and target languages

  You can either enter the source and target languages by hand or use the drop down menus. Bear in mind that changing the languages may render the currently used translation memories useless since their language pair may not longer match the new languages.

- Enable Sentence-level segmentation check box

  The segmentation settings only address the way the source files are handled by OmegaT. The predominant way of segmenting the sources is the sentence-level segmenting, so this check box should in a normal case be left checked.

  In some seldom cases the alternative, i.e. segmenting by paragraphs, may be preferred. Changing this flag does not modify the segmentation of already existing translation memories. If you decide mid-translation to switch from sentence to paragraph translation, the internal translation memory of the project will not be changed (OmegaT may upgrade old translation memories that did not use sentence segmentation, but not vice versa).

  Changing segmentation settings may cause some already translated segments to be split or merged. This will effectively return them to the "untranslated" status, as they will no longer match segments recorded in the project memory, even though their original translation is still there.

- Segmentation... button

  The segmentation rules are generally valid across all the projects. The user, however, may need to generate a set of rules, specific to the project in question. Use this button to open a dialog,activate the check box Project specific segmentation rules, then proceed to adjust the segmentation rules as desired. The new set of rules will be stored together with the project and will not interfere with the general set of segmentation rules. To delete project specific segmentation rules, uncheck the check box. See chapter Source Segmentation for more information on segmentation rules.

  Hint: the set of segmentation rules for a given project is stored as `project/omegat/segmentation.conf.`

- File Filters... button

  In a similar fashion as above the user can create project-specific File filters, which will be stored together with the project and will be valid for the current project only. To create a project-specific set of file filters, click on the File filter ... button, then activate Enable project specific filters check box in the window, that opens. A copy of the changed filters configuration will be stored with the project. To delete project specific file filters, uncheck the check box. Note that in the menu Options->File Filters, the global user filters are changed, not the project filters. See chapter File filters for more on the subject.

  Hint: the set of file filters for a given project is stored as `project/omegat/filters.xml.`

- Autopropagation check box

  In case there are non-unique segments in source documents, the Auto-propagation check box offers the user the following two possibilities as regards automatic translation: if checked, the first translated segment will be assumed as the default translation and its target text will be automatically used for later hits during the translation process. Mistranslated segments can of course be corrected later manually using Create Alternative Translation. If the Auto-propagation check box is not checked, the segments with alternative translations are left untranslated until the user has decided which translation is to be used.

- Remove tags check box

  When enabled, all the formatting tags are removed from source segments. This is especially useful when dealing with texts where inline formatting is not really useful (e.g., OCRed PDF, bad converted .odt or .docx, etc.) In a normal case it should always be possible to open the target documents, as only inline tags are removed. Non-visible formatting (i.e., which doesn't appear as tags in the OmegaT editor) is retained in target documents.

- An area for setting project folders

  Here you can select different subfolders, for instance the subfolder with source files, subfolder for target files etc. If you enter names of folders that do not exist yet, OmegaT creates them for you. In case you decide to modify project folders, keep in mind that this will not move existing files from old folders to the new location.

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