Installing and running OmegaT

Do you have a Java implementation compatible with Oracle's Java 8 JRE?

To install OmegaT, double-click on the program you have downloaded.

At the beginning of the installation you can select the language to be used during the installation. In the following window you can indicate that the language selected is to be used in OmegaT. If you check the corresponding checkbox, the OmegaT.l4J.ini file is modified to use the language selected (see next section for details). Later, after you have accepted the license agreement, the setup program asks you whether you wish to create a folder in the Start menu, and whether you wish to create a shortcut on the desktop and in the quick launch bar - you can create these shortcuts later by dragging OmegaT.exe to the desktop or to the Start menu to link it from there. The last frame offers you to have a look at the readme and changes files for the version you have installed.

Once OmegaT is installed, you can click on OmegaT.jar to launch it directly or you can launch it directly from the command line.

The simplest way to launch OmegaT, however, is to execute the OmegaT.exe program. The options for the program start-up in this case will be read from the OmegaT.l4J.ini file, which resides in the same folder as the exe file and which you can edit to reflect your setup. The following example for the INI file reserves 1 GB of memory, requests French as the user language and Canada as the country:

# OmegaT.exe runtime configuration
# To use a parameter, remove the '#' before the '-'
# Memory
-Xmx1024M
# Language
-Duser.language=FR
# Country
-Duser.country=CA

Advice: if OmegaT works slowly in Remote Desktop sessions under Windows, you may use this option:

-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=false

This information applies only to the "Traditional" Windows versions of OmegaT. It does not apply to the Web Start versions, which are upgraded automatically, nor to cross-platform versions installed on Windows.

If you already have a version of OmegaT installed on your PC and wish to upgrade to a more recent version, you have two options:

With this method, you may also download the "Windows without JRE" version, since the new installation will use your existing JRE.

Do you have a Java implementation compatible with Oracle's Java 8 JRE?

Unpack/untar the downloaded file. This will create an omegat folder in the working folder in which you will find all the files needed to run OmegaT. To untar the .tar.gz file:

$ tar xf downloaded_file.tar.gz

You can launch OmegaT from the command line with a script that includes start-up options or you can click on OmegaT.jar to launch it directly. Methods differ depending on the distribution. Make sure that your PATH settings are correct and that .jar files are properly associated with a Java launcher. Check "???" below for more information.

OmegaT contains the Java JRE 1.8

Download OmegaT_4.n.n_Mac.zip.

Double click on OmegaT_4.n.n_Mac.zip to unpack it. This creates a folder called OmegaT. The folder contains 2 files: index.html and OmegaT.app. Copy the folder to a suitable folder (e.g. Applications). Once you have done this, you can delete the OmegaT_4.n.n_Mac.zip file, it is no longer needed.

Drag and drop OmegaT.app onto the Dock.

Double-click on OmegaT.app or click on its location in the Dock.

You can modify OmegaT's behaviour by editing the Properties as well as the Configuration.properties file in the package.

To access Configuration.properties, right-click on OmegaT.app and select "Show Package Contents", then open the file in Contents/Resources by right-clicking on it and selecting your text editor of choice. You can also cd there directly from the command line and open Configuration.properties in a command line editor like emacs or vi.

Options are changed by modifying Configuration.properties. For pre-defined options, remove the # before a parameter to enable it. For example, user.language=ja (without the #) will launch OmegaT with the user interface in Japanese.

To change the amount of memory available, edit OmegaT.app/Contents/Info.plist file and un-comment the line <!-- <string>-Xmx6g</string> --> by removing the <!-- and -->. This will launch OmegaT with 6 GB of memory; change the 6g to the desired amount.

To launch multiple instances of OmegaT.app, double-click the file OmegaT located in OmegaT.app/Contents/MacOS/.

Use the OmegaT.jar file located in OmegaT.app/Contents/MacOS/Java/ to launch OmegaT from the command line. Check "???" below for more information.

OmegaT.app can make use of macOS Services. You can thus select a word anywhere in OmegaT and use Services to check this word, for instance in Spotlight or in Google. You can also use AppleScript or Automator to create Services or scripts that will automate frequent actions.

OmegaT is available bundled with a Oracle Java JRE for Linux (Intel x86) and Windows platforms. Users of other platforms (Linux PowerPC, Linux x64, Solaris SPARC/x86/x64, Windows x64 etc) must have a running compatible Java JRE on their system to be able to use OmegaT.

Do you have a Java implementation compatible with Oracle's Java 8 JRE?

To install OmegaT, simply unpack the OmegaT_4.n.n_Without_JRE.zip file. This creates an ./OmegaT_4.n.n_Without_JRE/ folder in the working folder with all the files necessary to run OmegaT.

Follow your system's instructions to install OmegaT shortcuts in convenient places of your choosing.

Once OmegaT is installed, you can launch it directly from the command line, you can create a script that includes launch parameters for the command line or you can click on OmegaT.jar to launch it directly. Methods differ depending on the distribution. Make sure that your PATH settings are correct and that .jar files are properly associated with a Java launcher. Check "???" below for more information.

A command line window is also referred to as a "terminal window". On Windows it is called an "MS-DOS window" and is available from the Start Menu, inside Programs, through the "MS-DOS" item. The macOS equivalent is the application Terminal located in Applications/Utilities.

To launch OmegaT, you must normally type two commands. The first of these is:

cd 
                     folder
                  
               

where folder is the name of the folder, with complete path, in which your OmegaT program - specifically, the file OmegaT.jar - is located. In practice, this command will therefore be something like this:

On Windows

cd C:\Program Files\OmegaT

On macOS

cd 
                     <OmegaT.app location>
                  /OmegaT.app/Contents/Resources/Java/

On Linux

cd /usr/local/omegat

This command changes the folder to the folder containing the executable OmegaT file. The second command is the command which actually launches OmegaT. In its most basic form, this command is:

java -jar OmegaT.jar

Pay attention to the capitalization - in OS other than Windows, the program will not start, if you enter omegat instead of OmegaT!

This method has a particular benefit of being suitable for finding causes of problems: if an error occurs during use of the program, an error message is output in the terminal window which may contain useful information on the cause of the error.

The above method somewhat impractical way of launching a program routinely. For this reason, the two commands described above are contained in a file (a "script", also called a ".bat file" on Windows systems).

When this file is executed, the commands within it are automatically carried out. Consequently, to make changes to the launch command, it is sufficient to modify the file.

The basic command has already been mentioned above. Changes to this command involve the addition of "arguments" to it. Arguments are added after the initial java , and before the -jar OmegaT.jar. Note that in Windows you can change the OmegaT.l4J.ini file to reflect your preferences. In other platforms, you can modify Configuration.properties file on the Mac, or OmegaT launcher under Linux to do the same.

A list of possible arguments is given below. Advanced users can obtain more information on the arguments by typing man java in the terminal window.

Arguments can be combined: to launch OmegaT with all the examples described above, the command would be:

java -Dswing.aatext=true -Duser.language=pt -Duser.country=BR -Xmx2048M -Dhttp.proxyHost=192.168.1.1 -Dhttp.proxyport=3128 -jar -OmegaT.jar

The purpose of the console mode is to use OmegaT as a translation tool in a scripting environment. When started in console mode, no GUI is loaded (so it will work on any console) and the given project is automatically processed as requested.

java -jar OmegaT.jar 
                        /path/to/project
                      \
    --config-dir=
                        /path/to/config-files/
                      \
    --config-file=
                        /path/to/config-file/
                      \
    --mode=
                        console-translate|console-createpseudotranslatetmx|console-align
                      \
    --source-pattern=
                        regexp