Feature request: Rainbow: Set Byte Order Mark (BOM) when creating xliff files

[Former user]

Original issue 434 created by [e-mail] on 2015-01-20T21:54:53.000Z:

When I create a new translation kit, the xliff file (UTF-8 encoded) won't have a BOM, no matter if I select "Generic XLIFF" or "OmegaT Project".

There is one reason a BOM could really help: When working together with Trados users it turns out that they are perfectly able to import the xliff files (either created by Generic XLIFF or by OmegaT Project setting). However Trados seems to ignore the encoding information on the xliff header. It simply treats the file as ANSI encoded which ends up in defective letters on the target file(s) created by Trados.

However it works fine if I put a BOM on the xliff files before I import them to Trados. Trados will recognize the UTF-8 encoding and will produce target files with UTF-8 enconding (which afterwards can be handled e.g. in OmegaT and converted back to the original format with Rainbow).

OK, it's kind of a Trados bug. But it can be fixed by simply adding the BOM to the xliff files. It would make exchange much easier.

What steps will reproduce the problem?
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What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

Please provide any additional information below.

[Former user]

Comment 1. originally posted by [e-mail] on 2015-01-21T08:14:33.000Z:

I also tried to fix this by using Rainbows BOM conversion step, but I did not find a way to run it automatically on the target xliff files (even not when sending the output of the Translation Kit Creation step to the BOM conversion afterwards). Any other workaround?

[Former user]

Comment 2. originally posted by @ysavourel on 2015-02-21T23:59:05.000Z:

[Sebastian Ebert]

Although this issue is more or less based on incorrect encoding handling on Trados, it's probably easy to fix if the BOM is added to the xliff files created by Rainbow. Since lot's of translators use Trados for the translation process, it would be a really useful modification and enable a smooth integration of Rainbow with Trados.

[Jim Hargrave (OLD)]

xml standard doesn't require BOM for utf-8