Translation memories & glossaries

Resources are reusable language assets that improve consistency and speed across your projects. There are two kinds:

Translation memories (TMs) store source–target pairs from past work so identical or similar text can be reused instead of translated again.
Glossaries fix the preferred translation of specific terms so terminology stays consistent.

Use a TM when you want whole segments reused; use a glossary when you want individual terms rendered the same way every time. Most projects benefit from both. Each kind has its own in-depth page: translation memories and glossaries.

The Resources page

The Resources page is your library. It has two tabs — Translation memories and Glossaries — with a card per resource showing its name, language pair, and entry count. Click a card to open the resource in its viewer, where you can browse, search, edit, and download the contents.

Personal and organization libraries

Resources belong to a library. By default you work in your personal library. If you belong to an organization, a switcher on the Resources page lets you change context: in an organization’s library, uploads become organization assets, marked with an “Org” badge and managed by the organization owner.

Importing a resource

You own your data in both directions: standard interchange formats in, standard interchange formats out.

Translation memories import from TMX files (the industry-standard translation memory exchange format). The language pair is read from the file.
Glossaries import from TBX (the term-base exchange format), CSV, or tab-delimited TXT files. Languages are detected automatically from the content; you can correct them afterwards on the resource card.

Drop the file on the matching upload area, optionally set a name and a subject domain, and upload. You can also create an empty TM or glossary — either from the Resources page or on the fly during translation setup — and let it fill up as you work.

Exporting a resource

Every resource can be downloaded from its viewer: TMs as TMX, glossaries as TBX. Exports contain your full data — there is no lock-in, and you can take a TM or glossary to any other tool that reads these formats.

The one exception is entries that were added during a project that has not been fully paid yet; see withheld additions below.

Metadata

Each resource card expands into an inline metadata editor where you can change:

Name.
Language pair. If you are unsure what languages a file actually contains, use the built-in detection: it samples the entries and suggests languages with confidence percentages you can apply with one click.
Subject domain — a label such as legal, medical, or software that helps you keep resources organized and grouped by topic.
Case sensitivity (glossaries only) — whether term matching in the editor distinguishes upper and lower case. Off by default; turn it on for glossaries where casing carries meaning (for example brand names or abbreviations that clash with common words).

A resource can also carry optional script and region qualifiers on its languages (for example Brazilian Portuguese rather than any Portuguese). A resource without qualifiers is universal: it matches every variant of its languages. When you attach resources to a project, exact variant matches, universal resources, and different-variant resources are told apart so you can spot a mismatch before it matters.

Attaching resources to projects

Resources do their work inside projects. During translation setup — or later from the project hub — you expand a language pair and attach the TMs and glossaries that should apply to it. Only resources whose language pair matches are offered; glossaries match in both directions, TMs in one.

Two details about attachments:

Who sees them. Resources attached by the project manager apply for everyone on the project. Translators can additionally attach their own resources, which apply only to their own work.
Authoritative resources. A project manager can mark an attachment as authoritative. An authoritative TM’s 100% matches are applied automatically; an authoritative glossary’s terms are enforced — the automated quality checks flag any segment that deviates from them. Non-authoritative resources act as suggestions.

How the attached resources then surface while translating is covered in TMs, termbases & glossaries in the editor.

Withheld additions

Work done inside a project flows back into the resources attached to it: new translation units and glossary terms created in project context are added to your resource. These additions are withheld from exports until the project is fully paid — the same gate that controls creating translated files.

When a resource has withheld additions, its card shows a Withheld additions panel listing each project and its count. Once every assignment in the project is paid, a Release button appears and the owner can release the additions into the exportable pool. For organization assets, only the organization owner can release.

Translation memories — the TM viewer and how TM leverage works.
Glossaries — the glossary viewer, term matching, and forbidden terms.
Translation setup — attaching resources when creating a project.
TMs, termbases & glossaries in the editor — how resources appear while you translate.