How to…
Set up quality assurance (QA) checking

memoQ includes a quality assurance (QA) module that can check many aspects of translations. This topic describes how you can use QA checks in your project.

The QA module always works in the background. The project settings determine how the module works. There are numerous settings that control what the QA module checks. The available checks include checking that

· a segment, if repeating, is translated the same way;
· terms in the source text are translated as in the available term bases;
· the translated text is not significantly longer or shorter than the source text;
· numbers are identical on the target and the source side (not considering the formatting differences);
· correct punctuation is used, and there are no excess whitespace characters;
· inline (XML) tags are used correctly.
 

Setting up QA in a project

QA settings form a resource in memoQ. In each project, you can use one QA option set. To control the QA settings you use in your project, do the following:

1. Open the project, and, in Project home, click the Settings icon. The Settings pane appears.
2. In the Settings pane, click the QA settings icon. It looks like this:

MemoQ icon qa settings unselected Set up quality assurance (QA) checking MemoQ icon qa settings selected Set up quality assurance (QA) checking

3. The list of QA option sets appears. The list is similar to a list of translation memories. memoQ lists the QA option sets available for your project. These will be the QA settings available on your computer, and on the server you are currently connected to, and in your language pair (where applicable). The check box for one of the QA option sets will have a check mark. This indicates that the settings in that option set are currently used in your project:

MemoQ qa settings list in project Set up quality assurance (QA) checking
 

Note: memoQ also displays any QA option sets from other servers that you pinned to the list earlier. For more on pinning resources to a list, see the help topic for the Resource console.

4. To use a QA option set in your project, check the check box to the left of the name of the set. memoQ will move those settings to the top of the list, and uncheck any other check boxes (you can use one QA option set at a time).
5. To revise QA settings, select the QA option set you want to change, and click Edit under the list. Normally, you would change the QA settings that you are currently using. Alternatively, you can right-click the name, and choose Edi
t from the popup menu.

Important: You cannot change memoQ’s default QA settings. If you attempt to edit the Default settings, memoQ will display a message box with a warning that default resources cannot be edited. Then memoQ offers to make a copy of the resource with a different name. If you click Yes, memoQ will display the Clone QA option set dialog, where you can name or the copy. (By default, memoQ adds “copy” to the existing name, as in the screenshot above, where the name is Default – copy). Finally, memoQ creates the copy. memoQ does not automatically open the copy for editing: you need to select the copy, then click Edit below the list.

6. When you edit a QA option set, memoQ opens the Edit QA settings dialog.

See the help topic for the Edit QA settings dialog for details on individual settings.

 

Changing the default QA option set

When you create a new local project, memoQ will use the default QA option set. There is a ‘default’ default (the original default) that comes with memoQ, and is in place as soon as you install memoQ. That original default is the QA options set you cannot change. If you want to change the default QA settings, follow these steps:

1. Choose Options from the Tools menu, and, in the Global settings dialog, click the Default resources category. The Default resources pane appears on the right.

2. At the top of the Default resources pane, click the QA settings icon. memoQ displays the list of all QA option sets available on your computer.

3. To set another QA option set as the default, check the check box to the left of the name. The newly selected QA option set moves to the top of the list.

4. To edit a QA option set on this list, select the option set, and click Edit below the list. You cannot edit the original Default QA option set, but you can edit all others.

Note: You can choose a language at the top. Normally, all QA option sets are language independent, but in the Edit QA settings dialog, you can set language-specific options for numbers and punctuation. If a QA option set contains language-specific options, any language-specific options you selectfor a language will be listed.

Caution: On the list of default QA option sets, only local resources are displayed. If you want to use a QA option set from a server as the default, first you need to use the Resource Console to access the server where the option set resides, then pin the option set to the list of resources available on your computer.

Set up quality assurance (QA) checking