Importing Studio TM and TB into memoQ

memoQ is great tool with many interoperability features, including easy SDLXLIFF file import/export, ability to import Studio packages and generating Studio return packages. And while packages are imported with translation memories and term bases, strangely the ability to import stand-alone Studio TMs (SDLTM) and TBs (SDLTB) is nowhere to be found in the UI. And this can be a seroius problem if a client sends you SDLXLIFF and SDLTM files instead of proper package (happens often enough). And while there is a solution to this problem, I’m offering a relatively simple alternative.

Since memoQ can import both TM and TB native formats as parts of Studio package, all we need is to add the files we need into a proper Studio package and import it into memoQ. Using a simple package as a starting point I’ve created a bogus Studio package you can use to import the files you need. Here’s how:

1. Download this file.
2. Unpack its content to an empty folder (e.g. “Package”)
3. Go to TM folder.
4. Copy the TM file you need to import (e.g. “My_Studio_TM”) into this folder (optional: you can delete “Example_TM.sdltm” file)
5.  Browse one level up, to folder “Package”.
6. Go to Termbases folder.
7. Copy the TB file you need to import (e.g. “My_Studio_TB”) into this folder (optional: you can delete “Example_TB.sdltb” file).
8. Browse one level up, to folder “Package”.
9. Open “Import_wrapper.sdlproj” with text editor (right click the file, select “Open with” and choose Notepad or any other text editor).
   Optionally you can rename the file, adding extention .txt, which will help with file editing.
10. Find string “Example_TM.sdltm” and replace it with the name of the TM you want to import (e.g. “My_Studio_TM.sdltm”).
11. Find string “Example_TB.sdltb” and replace it with the name of the TB you want to import (e.g. “My_Studio_TB.sdltb”).
12. Find string “Example TB” and replace it with the name of your TB (e.g. “My Studio TB”).
13. Replace all occurrences of string “en-GB” with the code for your source language (e.g. “de-DE” for German-Germany).
14. Replace all ocurrences of string “pl-PL” with the code for your target language (e.g. “fr-FR” for French-France).
15. If you do import term base, remember to replace index languages (English, Polish) with your source and target languages.
16. Save edited “Import_wrapper.sdlproj” file. If you changed the extension in step 8, remember to re-name it back to .sdlproj.
17. Create a ZIP archive of the folder (e.g. “Package”) content.
18. Rename the archive by changing .zip extension into .sdlppx
19. Import content to memoQ with “Import package” command. memoQ will notify you during import that there are no files to translate, but TM and/or TB will be imported and can be used in different memoQ projects.

Please note that since Import_wrapper.sdlppx file does not contain any files for translation, it can’t be imported into Studio. And if you have problems with changing file extensions, please see here.