Unable to set <EMPTY> translation in OmegaT with Okapi filter OpenXML

[Manuel Souto Pico]

Preconditions

• Install the Okapi filter plugin for OmegaT, i.e. put the okapiFiltersForOmegaT-1.9-1.41.0.jar file in the plugins folder of OmegaT.
• Create an OmegaT project and add a Word file that contains at least a couple of sentences.

Steps to reproduce

1. In the first segment, go to Edit > Set empty translation
2. Move to another segment.

Expected results

1. OmegaT displays <EMPTY> in the segment where the empty translation has been set.
2. When exporting the target Word file, there’s nothing in the position of that segment.

Actual results

1. OK (as expected)
2. When exporting the target file, there’s the source text in the position of that segment.

Additional info

The filter configuration file for the Okapi XLIFF filter has an option to allow for an empty translation, but I am not aware of any such option in the equivalent configuration file for the OpenXML filter (i.e. [e-mail]).

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[Paolo Agostinetto]

I am also looking for a way to allow empty targets while using the OpenXML filter. The issue is not related to OmegaT’s plugin but to the OpenXML filter.

It appears that making this change is not very invasive and it consists of making a few changes to the StyledTextSkeletonWriter class and ConditionalParameters.

Apparently, the method getTargetForOutput() inside the class does exactly what we want to avoid (use the source when the target is empty).

So if I understand this correctly, a possible solution would be to make this behavior conditional and add a new flag to the ConditionalParameters class, much like for the XLIFF filter, like Manuel suggested.

We will work on a PR with these changes.

[Manuel Souto Pico]

Transferred to Omegat-plugin issue #41