OmegaT is a robust and trustworthy application, but even so, it is smart to take precautions to guard against data loss when using it, just as with any other application.
OmegaT creates backups of your project settings to ensure it can retrieve them in case of problem. See the omegat.project section for details.
OmegaT regularly and automatically stores all your progress in the project_save.tmx file located in the project’s omegat folder. OmegaT also creates regular backups of that file.
When you open a project, OmegaT backs up the
project_save.tmx file to a timestamped backup
file.
OmegaT keeps up to ten of those files.
The backup filename follows the pattern
project_save.tmx.YYYYMMDDhhmm.bak where
YYYY represents the 4-digit year, MM the
month, DD the day of the month, and hh and
mm indicate the hours and minutes.
Every time the project_save.tmx file is
modified:
either after saving the project data (use C + S ),
or when making a regular backup (every 3 minutes by default),
OmegaT creates a backup file named
project_save.tmx.bak.
That file is a copy of project_save.tmx
before
it was modified.
Every time you save the project data (use
C
+
S
), or
when making a regular backup, OmegaT saves the current state of the
translation into project_save.tmx.
The project_save.tmx file always contains the
most recent data.
You can set the frequency of the regular backups in the Saving and Output preference.
Even if you fear you might have lost translation data, it is probably safely stored in your most recent backup memory, which is usually less than a few minutes old or so.
Proceed as follows:
Close the project to prevent any changes to the current status of the backup files.
Rename the current project_save.tmx file (to
project_save.tmx.tmp, for example).
Select the backup translation memory most likely to contain the data you are looking for.
Rename it project_save.tmx.
Reopen the project.
This action will restore your translation to its state at the point the selected backup was created. You may repeat this operation as needed to find older states. Consider safely storing all the different files you are renaming for eventual reuse. Also remember not to modify the project configuration or add TMX files in the meantime, as doing so may affect the results.
Exercise caution with changes made to files in the source folder, the segmentation rules, or the file filters, partway through a project. Modifying any of those after you have started your translation could result in some segments disapparing or new segments appearing unexpectedly.
In the rare case where your computer freezes and OmegaT does not have
time to close properly, the omegat.project file can be
locked by the operating system and keep you from reopening after you reboot
your system.
Proceed as follows:
Identify the project folder that OmegaT refuses to open and open it in your file manager. The folder contents should be similar to a standard project folder.
In the folder, you should find a
omegat.project file as well as a
omegat.project.bak file. Make sure that the files
are identical.
Rename the omegat.project file (to
omegat.project.locked for example).
Rename the omegat.project.bak file to
omegat.project.
Open the project.
This action will open the project with the automatically created
backup omegat.project file.
In the rare case where your computer freezes and OmegaT does not have time to close properly, some important files can be corrupted and keep your project from reopening after you reboot your system.
Proceed as follows:
Create a new project with the same settings.
Copy the contents of the various user folders to the equivalent location in the new project (source files, reference translation memory files, glossary files).
In the old project, select the translation memory file (main or backup) most likely to contain the data you are looking for.
Rename it project_save.tmx if necessary.
Copy it to the omegat/ folder of your new
project.
Open the new project.
This action will set the new project the state of your translation at the point the selected project translation memory was created in the old project.
Very often, office suite files contain tags that must be copied into the translation to ensure that the translated file can be opened in the original application. In some cases, missing tags will keep the file from opening.
Proceed as follows:
This action will fix any internal tag consistency issues due to not inserting tags properly while entering the translation in OmegaT.
Something has happened and OmegaT won’t behave anymore. Whatever you try, you can’t seem to be able to fix it. You want to try one last thing before calling for help: restart OmegaT with its default settings.
Proceed as follows:
Use to access the configuration folder.
If you can’t use OmegaT’s menus, see the Configuration Folder chapter to find the configuration folder location.
Close OmegaT.
Make a backup of the contents and delete the original folder.
Restart OmegaT.
If OmegaT does not work as expected at this point, feel free to reach out for support.
Close OmegaT.
Copy one of the old files into the new configuration folder.
Restart OmegaT.
If OmegaT does not work as expected at this point, you have identified the faulty file. Remove it from the configuration folder and, restart OmegaT, and proceed with your work.
Go back to Step 5. above and continue until you are satisfied.
To avoid losing important data, make regular copies of the
/omegat/project_save.tmx file to a backup medium
such as a USB key, an external hard drive, or a cloud service.
Regularly practice “emergency measures” such as restoring translations from a project to make sure you won’t lose too much time the day you need to use those skills.
When a project is initially created, it comes with its own empty project translation memory, the project_save.tmx file, located in the omegat folder. This memory is gradually filled as your translation progresses.
Existing translations are used to speed up the translation process.
If a given sentence has already been translated once, there is no
need to retranslate it. See the
Auto-propagation
of translations
project
property.
If an old translation is similar to the contents of the segment you are translating, you can recycle it in your translation. See the Fuzzy Matches pane for details.
You can also make use of reference translation memories by putting them in the tm folder of your project.
When you use
C
+
D
to create the
target documents for a project, OmegaT also outputs three translation
memories that reflect the current state of the translation for the files in
the source folder. See the
Exported
translation memories folder
project property for details.
Each of the three files constitutes a bilingual export of the current content of your translation. Their content comes from the global project memory (the project_save.tmx file) but is strictly limited to what you have translated so far.
You can also use the tool to create a TMX from two files in a format that OmegaT supports.
To reuse translation memories from a previous project you have two options:
Open the old project and put the new source files in its source folder.
That’s the easiest way to work on the new version of an already translated document.
After reloading the old project, its translation memory will be applied to the new source files. Identical segments will be automatically translated. Similar segments will be provided with matches from the project translated memory as you enter them.
Alternatively, put the reference memories from the old project in the tm folder of the new one.
That’s the preferred method if you want to start your translation from scratch.
Depending on how reliable the memory is, you can prefer to put it in one of the following subfolders:
Exact matches coming from the tm/enforce and the tm/auto subfolders will be
automatically inserted into the translation, without the prefix that is
inserted by OmegaT when it inserts matches above a set threshold. See
the
Insert
the best fuzzy match
preference for details.
Enable the
Save
auto-populated status
option to have OmegaT remember that the inserted matches came from those
folders.
Use the navigation menus found in to navigate to an automatically inserted segment.
As reference translations, OmegaT also supports bilingual documents that are not TMX files. The file formats that OmegaT supports are all the bilingual formats that OmegaT accepts as source files:
PO files
TXML files
XLIFF files
SDLXLIFF files
You can add such files to your project's tm folder or one of its subfolders and the translated data will be immediately be available for matching purposes.
OmegaT can read TMX-standard compliant memories produced by other tools.
Some tools produce invalid TMX files under certain conditions. You will have to fix them if you want to use them as reference memories, otherwise OmegaT will report an error and fail to load them. Fixes are generally simple, and the error message provided by OmegaT will help you pinpoint the error. You can also ask the user group for advice if you have problems.
You may want to store translation memories in separate folders, by client or area of specialty so you can reuse them quickly when the need arises. Any writable folder can be used instead of the project tm folder. See the File locations section of the project property dialog.
In situations where you need to share a TMX that contain only the text from certain specific files and excludes other content, follow the procedure below:
Copy only the documents whose content you want to include into the source folder
of your project.
Open the project.
Use C + U to find any untranslated segments (and translate them, if need be).
Use C + S + V to check for possible issues.
Use C + D to create the TMX files that correspond to the current contents.
The TMX files located in the exported translation memory folder now
contain only the original and translated text from the files you copied
into the source folder, in the selected language pair. See the
Exported
translation memories folder
project property for details.
OmegaT displays fuzzy matches in the Fuzzy Matches pane. By default, those matches are limited to the source and target languages defined in the Project Properties dialog.
You can add matches in languages that are not the target language. See
the
Include
matches from other languages
preference for
details.
If you have a TMX that corresponds to your source document and contains its translation to a different language, you can also display that language right below the source segment for use as an additional reference language.
To achieve this:
Copy the translation memory containing the additional reference
language into tmx2source in the
tm
folder.
Rename the memory file to:
LL_CC.tmx,
LL-CC.tmx, or
LL.tmx,
where LL is the internal language code of the langage that you want to display as reference, and CC is an arbitrary 2-letter code.
All the letters must be capital letters.
Only segments that match the source exactly are displayed.
If you have a TMX that contains the Japanese translation of an English document you are translating to French, you can use the Japanese translation as an alternative exact reference by displaying it under the English text to translate.
Just put the English-Japanese file in tm/tmx2source under the name
JA-JP.tmx. OmegaT will now show you the Japanese text
corresponding to the English source segment:
— ¶ ————————————————————— A whitespace character: [ \t\n\x0B\f\r] ja-JP: 空白文字：[ \t\n\x0B\f\r] Un caractère d'espacement : [ \t\n\r\f\x0B]<segment 3075 ¶> — ¶ —————————————————————
The first line is the original English, the second line is the bridge language you expect to find useful when you create your translation, and the third line is the current translation to French.
You can use any number of TMX files containing as many different bridge language pairs as you want.
OmegaT's file filters provide a wide range of support for common and less common file formats. If you need to support formats that are not covered by OmegaT, there are four ways to do so:
File filters have a list of file extensions that are associated to them. If the format you want to translate is structurally close to an already supported format, just add its file extension to the supported format extension list, or change the file extension to one that is accepted by the file filter that you want to use. See the File Filters chapter for details.
You can also use OmegaT's custom tag function to register format
specific strings and have OmegaT handle them as if they were normal
tags. See the
Custom
tags
preferences for details.
To ensure that all the properties of a format are properly taken into account, it is sometimes preferable to convert the file to a supported format and then convert the translated file back to the original format.
A number of free software third party utilities provide such “round-trip” conversion, including:
Rainbow, from the Okapi Framework
License: Apache License Version 2.0
The Okapi Framework comes with a number of file filters, including some not supported natively by OmegaT. See List of file filters for details.
Rainbow can create XLIFF 1.2 compliant files or OmegaT projects from all the files set as “input” files. Rainbow-supported files are converted into XLIFF and inserted as source files into a full fledged OmegaT project that you can open with OmegaT right away. See Rainbow TKit - OmegaT Project for details.
License: GNU General Public License v2
po4a supports a number of free software documentation formats, listed on the site front page, and offers conversion tools to and from the po format. See the PO files section for details.
The converters from the Translate Toolkit
License: GNU General Public License v2
The Translate Toolkit offers a number of convertion tools to and from the po format. See Converters for details.
OpenXLIFF from Maxprograms
License: Eclipse Public License v1.0
OpenXLIFF supports a number of file filters, including some not supported natively by OmegaT. See OpenXLIFF Filters for details. Maxprograms also distributes XLIFF Manager, a graphical user interface for the OpenXLIFF Filters.
OpenXLIFF produces XLIFF 1.2 compliant files.
Some formats, like PDF, cannot be properly handled through “round trip” conversions. They require an intermediate conversion to a supported format that serves as a base to manually create a proper target language document.
You can find a number of online or offline utilities that convert PDF to common office formats, but the conversion will always require extensive manual adjustments to the target document before a proper PDF document can be produced. Make sure you understand the format requirements when you start working on a PDF or similar file.
The Okapi Filters Plugin for OmegaT, from the Okapi Framework
License: Apache License Version 2.0
Not all of the Okapi Framework file filters are included into the file filter plugin. See Filters Included for details.
When installed, the plugin offers direct access to the added formats and also allows you to associate a custom filter parameters file created in Rainbow. See above.
Other plugins for less common formats are listed on the OmegaT wiki. See Plugins.
OmegaT provides developers with thorough documentation to create file filter plugins. See How to create a file filter plugin for OmegaT for details.
Managing a team project calls for some knowledge of either the SVN or Git version control system ( VCS in the rest of this section).
As information on those topics is readily available, this manual limits itself to describing their use in the context of an OmegaT team project.
An OmegaT team projects synchronizes the project translation memory project_save.tmx and the project writable glossary glossary.txt between the hosting server and all the participating team members, and manages all possible conflicts between them.
Here are the steps to set up a team project:
Create an empty repository on your VCS hosting server
This can normally be done through a web interface, a graphical application, or the command line. Consult the documentation for your server or hosting service for details.
Use the local VCS to make a local copy (clone)
This local version contains your project manager copy of the OmegaT project. Use it to make modifications that affect the entire team.
The local repository is used to add the initial project to the server, and can also be used for maintenance tasks, such as deleting files, that cannot be performed directly within OmegaT.
We recommend that you avoid using that folder for translation tasks. If you need to perform translation or review tasks on that project, use OmegaT to download a separate copy of the team project and work from there. See the Use a team project how-to for details.
Fill the empty local copy with a real OmegaT project
Create the project structure
If you are creating a new empty project, you can follow the GUI procedure, or create it directly from the command line: java -jar OmegaT.jar team init <source language> <target language>
This command also automatically registers the project in the version control system.
Choose the appropriate settings
Make the necessary changes to the project properties at this stage, including local file filters or segmentation settings. See the Project Properties dialog for details.
Add the necessary files
Similarly add any relevant lists of spellchecker files you want to make available to everyone working on the project. See spellchecker files for details.
If you are converting an existing project, make sure you delete any files in the project that you do not need or want to upload to the server before proceeding to the next step.
Copy the files to translate to the source/ folder, and use your SVN or Git client, or the command line, to add and publish them to the repository. Use to add files from OmegaT.
You must use your SVN or Git client, or the command line, to add and publish any dictionaries, glossaries, translation memories or other files you want to include in the project.
This step can be performed before the registering and publishing the project for the first time, and can also be used to add new files, or update existing ones after the project has been created.
In team projects that use a simple mapping between the local repository and the remote repository (the default), and only in such projects , the source and target files can be modified locally and uploaded to the server using and .
The team project administrator must use the local VCS to modify or delete those files. Some plugins can make this task easier. See the Plugins preference for details.
Register the project files into the local VCS
If you created the project from the GUI, you then have to explicitly add it to the version control system ( add in both SVN and Git).
Put the registered files on the hosting server
Finally, publish your project to the remote server ( commit in SVN, commit and push in Git).
Give access rights to your team
If you use multiple projects on the same server, credentials will only be asked once for that server.
After the project is ready and has been uploaded to the server, the team project administrator has to set up access for the translators. Accessing a team project requires the following information:
Projects on a hosting service
The translators will have to create an account for the service, and send their user name to the team project administrator.
The administrator will then grant write access to the repository to those accounts.
Projects on a self-hosted server
If the server is self-hosted and does not have a provision for translators to register an account themselves, the team project administrator must create accounts with write access for the translators.
After creating the accounts, the administrator must send the translators their individual credentials.
Have everybody download the project from OmegaT
Administrators have two options for sending the location of the project to the translators:
Send a URL and ask the translators to use to create a local copy of the project on their own system.
Send an omegat.project file containing
the project URL, and then have the translators copy it to an empty
folder and open it in OmegaT. This can be useful if the project is
set up to use different mappings
for each translator.
After the team project administrator confirms that a translator has been able to open the team project, it is a good idea to make sure that the project statistics are the same for both the administrator (on the server) and the translator (locally).
If they do not match, make sure the
filters.xml and
segmentation.conf files are properly shared.
If you need to work on the project too, download the project yourself to a local location different from the local team project location
You can now also work on the project with the team
It is possible to map various remote locations to local files via the OmegaT user interface using in the Project Properties dialog, or by editing the omegat.project file. Although the mapping feature is primarily intended for gathering source files from disparate locations, it can also be used for other types of files.
A list of mapping parameters is presented below, and examples of their use are provided in the next section.
This can be either http (which includes https), svn , git , or file .
Remote location or folder of the files to translate.
Name of the local folder or file, relative to the root of the OmegaT project.
Name of the remote folder or file, relative to the repository url.
Use wildcards (following the Apache Ant style: *, ?, **) to add patterns for files that should not be part of the mapping. Use a semicolon to separate different patterns.
Example:
**/excludedfolder/**;*.txt
excludes files that have /excludedfolder/ in the path, as well as
files with the .txt extension.
As above, but for files that should be part of the mapping. Since files are included by default unless specifically excluded, this option is only necessary to specify exceptions to an exclusion pattern.
Example:
**/*.docx
to add all .docx
files in the project, even if they are located in an excluded
folder.
Default project mapping:
<repository type="svn" url="https://repo_for_OmegaT_team_project"> <mapping local="" repository=""/> </repository>
All the contents of
https://repo_for_OmegaT_team_project are mapped to the
local OmegaT project
Mapping for projects in a subfolder of the repository:
<repository type="svn" url="https://repo_for_All_OmegaT_team_projects"> <mapping local="" repository="En-US_DE_project"/> </repository>
All the contents of
https://repo_for_All_OmegaT_team_projects/En-US_DE_project
are mapped to the local OmegaT project.
Mapping for additional sources from a remote repository, with filters:
<repository type="svn" url="https://repo_for_All_OmegaT_team_project_sources">
<mapping local="source/subdir" repository="">
<excludes>**/*.bak</excludes>
<includes>readme.bak</includes>
</mapping>
</repository>
Everything in
https://repo_for_All_OmegaT_team_project_sources is
mapped to the local OmegaT project source folder, except files with a
.bak extension. However, the
readme.bak is also included.
Mapping for extra source files from the web:
<repository type="http" url="https://github.com/omegat-org/omegat/raw/master/"> <mapping local="source/Bundle.properties" repository="src/org/omegat/Bundle.properties"/> </repository>
The remote file
https://github.com/omegat-org/omegat/raw/master/src/org/omegat/Bundle.properties
is mapped to the local file
source/Bundle.properties.
Mapping with renaming:
<repository type="http" url="https://github.com/omegat-org/omegat/raw/master/"> <mapping local="source/readme_tr.txt" repository="release/readme.txt"/> </repository>
The remote file
https://github.com/omegat-org/omegat/raw/master/release/readme.txt
is mapped to the local file
source/readme_tr.txt.
This makes it possible to rename the file to translate.
Local file mapping:
<repository type="file" url="/home/me/myfiles"> <mapping local="source/file.txt" repository="my/file.txt"/> <mapping local="source/file2.txt" repository="some/file.txt"/> </repository>
The local file /home/me/myfiles/my/file.txt is
mapped to the local file source/file.txt and
/home/me/myfiles/some/file.txt is mapped to the local
file source/file2.txt.
The project will not load if a file specified in a mapping does not exist.
You can add as many mappings as you want, but one of the mappings must
include the omegat.project file.
The above process describes the most common scenario, in which the team project administrator has full control of the project and all files (and statistics) are identical in all instances of the project, both on the server and the local systems of the translators.
It is also possible to use a team project configuration where several
translators share the project_save.tmx file, and only a
subset of the other files.
The basic procedure is essentially the same, except that the team project administrator does not add every file to the version-controlled project on the server. The remaining files are either copied by the translators themselves, or mappings that synchronize files from other locations are defined.
Team projects use synchronization mechanisms between project members.
Once a OmegaT team project is installed on a server, the administrator
sends members the information they need to access it: a URL indicating the
location of the project, or an omegat.project
file.
After the project is downloaded, it is installed locally and only needs to be opened locally to synchronize with the server.
Repository credentials are stored in the repositories.properties file and
can be deleted from the
Repository
Credentials
preferences.
Since synchronization takes place by default every three minutes, project members will sometime translate or modify a segment that has already been translated by another member but not synchronized yet. When that happens, members have to select the appropriate translation.
Members can take turns translating and reviewing the files. The Search function allows them to filter the Editor pane on contents translated by a given person, or on contents translated after or before a given time, for example.
From a URL
Use to bring up the Download Team Project dialog.
Enter the URL provided by the team project administrator in the Repository URL: field at the top of the dialog, and specify a folder for the project in the New Local Project Folder: field. Leave the Default branch option checked unless the project administrator has provided instructions for using a custom branch.
From an omegat.project file
Put the omegat.project file in an empty
folder, and open it in OmegaT. The project will automatically be
downloaded to the folder containing that file.
Servers generally use two main types of authentication: entering a username/password , or SSH .
If the server relies on username/password authentication, OmegaT
will present you with an Authentication dialog to
enter your username and password either when you first download the
project or later on in the process. OmegaT will then remember your
credentials for that specific project unless you explicitly delete
them. See the
Repository
Credentials
preferences for details.
If the server uses SSH authentication, make sure you update your SSH configuration to include that server before attempting to download the project, otherwise you will get an authentication error and the project will fail to load.
If you use multiple projects on the same server, credentials will only be asked once for that server.
Synchronizing the project adds translations made by all team members to local copies of the project. Only the contents of the two following files are synchronized:
project.save
glossary.txt
During synchronization, all other local files are overwritten
with the versions on the remote server, exept for
omegat.project (see below).
OmegaT synchronizes a team project when it is opened, reloaded,
closed or saved. This means the automatic save function also regularly
synchronizes local versions with the version on the server at the
interval specified in the
Project
data saving interval
preference.
As in regular local projects, the configuration of the team
project is defined by the contents of the omegat.project
file and the optional use of special files for project-specific
filters or segmentation rules.
The first time the project is downloaded, OmegaT retrieves the
omegat.project file from the server. This file
defines the following parameters:
Basic project configuration: Source and languages, tokenizers, and the project folder hierarchy.
In a team project, the basic configuration parameters of the local project are always overridden by the configuration on the server originally set by the project administrator.
Repository mappings
See the Repository mappings how-to for details.
If no custom mappings have been defined for the remote project, but local mappings have been customized, the local settings are preserved without affecting the settings on the server.
If the remote project contains custom mappings, but the local project does not, the mappings from the server are applied to the local project.
If the remote project specifies a URL protocol and you download it using a different protocol, your local configuration will be preserved.
For example, many hosting services support access to the same repository using either the SSH +Git or https protocol. OmegaT will respect the local protocol selection.
If you first download the remote project using an
omegat.project file provided by the project
administrator, OmegaT will use the mappings in that file, if
any.
If there is a conflict between the remote and local
versions of the omegat.project file and the
local version is overwritten, OmegaT creates a backup file
called omegat.project.YYYYMMDDhhmm.bak.
OmegaT creates up to ten backup files, and older backups
are automatically deleted in turn.
Remember that any modifications to the local project configuration files will be overwritten by the versions on the server when the project is synchronized.
After you generate the target files use to add them to the server, if the project administrator has requested you to do so.
Files in a team project cannot be deleted from OmegaT or the local file system. They will be restored the next time the project is synchronized. This task is normally performed by the project administrator.
You can open a team project and work on it offline. All changes will be synchronized the next time a connection is available.
There are two ways to work offline:
Disconnect from the network before opening the project.
Open the project from the command line with the
--no-team
option. See the Command line launch section for
details.
OmegaT comes in two editions:
This edition is recommended for everyday use.
This edition is automatically generated every time new code is added to OmegaT. It is used for testing purposes.
The files are downloadable directly from https://omegat.org.
OmegaT 6.0.1 requires a Java 11 Runtime Environment (JRE) to run.
OmegaT packages are available both in versions bundled with Java, and versions without it. Packages without Java rely on a Java 11 Runtime Environment installed systemwide.
OmegaT 5.8.0 and later can also run with Java 11 Runtime Environment on any platform.
Due to licensing considerations, the OmegaT team recommends the Eclipse Temurin Java runtime provided by the Eclipse Foundation's Adoptium Project, but any Java 8 compatible runtime environment should work. See The Eclipse Temurin™ project.
IBM provides JREs for Linux PowerPC at https://developer.ibm.com/languages/java/semeru-runtimes/downloads/.
Double-click on the package you downloaded.
You can choose the language used during the installation and the
language used by OmegaT. You can also change this later by editing the
OmegaT.l4J.ini file.
Some Linux distributions offer OmegaT in their package manager. The instructions given here apply to people who download the package from the https://omegat.org site and install it manually.
Unpack/untar the file you downloaded. This creates a new folder named after the package you downloaded. That folder contains all the files needed to run OmegaT.
Although you can run OmegaT directly from the available files, you
can also run the linux-install.sh script found there
to have OmegaT installed in more appropriate locations.
Running the script will require you to enter your
sudo password.
The script checks for an existing installation of the same OmegaT
version in /opt/omegat/. If there isn’t one, it
installs the program in /opt/omegat/OmegaT_6.0.1
and sets it as the default version (in
/opt/omegat/OmegaT-default).
After the unpacking or installation is complete, you can delete the downloaded file as it is no longer needed.
Double click on the package you downloaded to unpack it. This creates
a folder called OmegaT. The folder contains two files:
index.html (the user manual entry file) and
OmegaT.app (the application). Copy the folder to a
suitable location (e.g. Applications).
If so desired, drag and drop OmegaT.app onto the
Dock for easier access.
Once you have done this, you can delete the downloaded package as it is no longer needed.
This information applies to any system for a Java version compatible with Java 11 Runtime Environment is available. That includes the platforms described above, as well as platforms for which no specific OmegaT package is provided.
Download the Cross-platform without JRE version.
Unpack the file that you downloaded. This creates a folder with all the files necessary to run OmegaT.
Follow your system’s instructions to install OmegaT shortcuts in convenient places of your choosing.
OmegaT can tell you when a new version is available. See the Updates preference for details.
The changes between your version and the current version are documented in the development site’s changes.txt file.
If you decide to install a new version, keep the following in mind:
OmegaT’s preferences are stored in the configuration folder and will not be modified by the new version. See the Configuration Folder chapter for details.
Projects that you have created in the past or are currently using will not be modified or deleted. OmegaT projects are not stored inside OmegaT. They are separate objects that have no physical connection to the OmegaT application itself.
Parameter files that are included in the downloaded OmegaT
package (especially the OmegaT.l4J.ini for
Windows and the
Configuration.properties and
Info.plist files for macOS packages) might be
overwritten or deleted, so you may want to create a backup before
upgrading, if you have been using these files to modify OmegaT’s
launch parameters.
The plugins and
scripts folders might be overwritten, so you
may want to create a backup before upgrading.
To do this, simply select the same installation folder as the existing installation when installing the new version. The “old” version of OmegaT will be overwritten, but settings made from the OmegaT interface will be retained in the various configurations folders (see above).
This will enable you to keep any number of versions side-by-side, which you may wish to do until you feel comfortable with the new version.
All the parameters located in the OmegaT configuration folder will
be shared unless you specify a different configuration folder with the
--config-dir=<path> option on the command
line. See the OmegaT
options section.
All the parameters located in a project folder will apply to that project regardless of which version of OmegaT opens it.
Use your operating system’s standard procedure to remove OmegaT. If you want to remove OmegaT completely, you will also have to delete the configuration folder.
If you performed a manual installation on Linux, you will have to
manually delete the OmegaT folders in opt/, as well
as the symlinks placed in /usr/local/bin/ by the
installation script.
The source code for the current version can either be downloaded directly from the OmegaT download page, or cloned from the Sourceforge or GitHub repositories.
Once the code is downloaded, open a terminal in the source folder
(omegat-code/ if you cloned from Sourceforge, or
/omegat if you cloned from GitHub) and type:
./gradlew installDist
This will create a full, ready to launch distribution of OmegaT in the
build/install/OmegaT folder.
You can also run the application directly with the following command:
./gradlew run
You can get a list of all available tasks by typing:
./gradlew tasks
Detailed instructions on building OmegaT can be found in the README.txt
file located in the docs_devel subfolder.
The simplest way to launch OmegaT is to execute the
OmegaT.exe program. The options for the program
start-up 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
You can launch OmegaT from the command line with a script that includes start-up options. See the Command line launch section for details.
You can also double-click on OmegaT.jar to launch it
directly if the .jar extension is associated with the
system Java launcher.
The package also provides the omegat.kaptn Kaptain
script, which KDE users might find useful, as well as an
OmegaT bash script that automatically launches the
appropriate java command to run OmegaT.
Double-click on OmegaT.app or click on its
location in the Dock.
OmegaT.app comes with an
OmegaT executable located in
OmegaT.app/Contents/MacOS/ that you can also use to
launch multiple instances of OmegaT.app.
And it also comes with the generic OmegaT.jar
file located in OmegaT.app/Contents/MacOS/Java/ that
you can use to launch OmegaT from the command line. See the Command line launch section for details.
You can modify the behaviour of OmegaT.app by editing the
Configuration.properties (OmegaT configuration) as well
as the Info.plist (Java configuration) files located
inside the OmegaT.app package.
The Configuration.properties file is located in
the Contents/Resources/ folder.
The Info.plist file is located in the
Contents/ folder.
To access the files inside the OmegaT.app
package, right-click on OmegaT.app and select “Show
Package Contents”.
It is also possible to use OmegaT.app itself to
launch OmegaT from the terminal. See the Command
syntax
section below for details.
Use your text editor of choice to modify the files.
For predefined options, remove the # symbol
before a parameter to enable it. For example,
user.language=ja (without the #)
will launch OmegaT with the user interface in Japanese.
For example, to change the amount of memory available uncomment the line
<!-- <string>-Xmx6g</string>
-->
by removing the <!-- and
--> markers.
This will launch OmegaT with 6 GB of memory; change the
6g to the desired amount.
OmegaT.app can make use of macOS Services. You
can also use AppleScript, Automator or Shortcuts to create Services or
scripts that will automate frequent actions.
Methods vary from one system to another, but in general, once OmegaT is installed, you can launch it directly from the command line. See the Command line launch section for details.
You can create a script that includes the desired command line launch
parameters. If .jar files are properly associated with
the Java 11 Runtime Environment and your PATH settings are correct, you can also simply
click (or double-click) on OmegaT.jar to launch it
directly.
Consult the documentation for your system for more information.
Using the command line allows you to set various options that control or modify the behaviour of the application. You can also define and save sets of options in scripts that you can then use to launch OmegaT for a particular purpose.
Launching OmegaT from the command line also creates a new OmegaT instance for each launch. You can thus use multiple projects simultaneously, each with its own parameters.
Before graphical interfaces became common, users interacted with computers via a command-line interface (CLI), which requires typing commands to give instructions to the computer. On modern systems, the CLI is accessed through an application generally called a "terminal" or "console". For the sake of simplicity, this manual refers to it as the terminal.
On Windows, you can use either the Command Prompt or Powershell as a terminal. Both are available from the System Tools folder of the Start Menu.
The macOS equivalent is the Terminal
application located in the Utilities folder of the
Applications main folder.
On Linux, the default terminal application for your distribution should be available from the application menu or one of its submenus.
In the terminal, you type commands and their associated parameters to perform tasks. This makes it easy to perform certain tasks that would be difficult to perform using a graphical interface.
The syntax used to specify the location of an application or
folder depends on the platform. On Windows, the \ character
is used to separate folder and file names, while macOS and Linux use the
/ to do so.
Here are the default OmegaT.jar locations for each major platform:
C:\Program Files\OmegaT\OmegaT.jar
/Applications/OmegaT.app/Contents/Java/OmegaT.jar
/opt/omegat/OmegaT.jar
(This can vary depending on your distribution.)
That location is presented as
path/to/OmegaT.jar in this chapter. Replace it with
the actual location of the file on your system.
The syntax to launch OmegaT from the terminal is:
java -jar <java parameters> path/to/OmegaT.jar <OmegaT options>
On macOS, it is also possible to use
OmegaT.app directly in the terminal, in which case
java parameters cannot be added:
open path/to/OmegaT.app -n --args <OmegaT options>
where
-n
is used to create a new instance of
OmegaT.
java -jar
This command tells the Java Virtual Machine to run a Jar package.
<java
parameters>
Optional parameters accepted by the java command. The parameters relevant to running OmegaT are described below.
path/to/OmegaT.jar
The location of the OmegaT java executable.
<OmegaT
options>
The options specific to OmegaT are described later in this section
The list below presents parameters for the java command that can be useful when working with OmegaT.
-Duser.language=LL
Replace LL with the desired
two-letter language code from the ISO
639.1 list.
Using this parameter launches OmegaT with the user interface in the specified language, if available (even partially). If the language is not available, OmegaT defaults to English even if the system uses a different default language.
-Duser.country=CC
Replace CC with the desired two-letter country
code from the ISO 3166-1
alpha-2 list.
This parameter combines with the previous user interface language parameter to specify a regional variant. If that variant is not available, the user interface follows the same priority as above.
-XmxSIZE
Replace SIZE with a number consisting of a
multiple of 1024 followed by k for kilobytes,
m for megabytes, or g for gigabytes. The
number must correspond to at least 2 MB.
-Dhttp.proxyHost=<proxy IP>
Replace <proxy IP> with the IP address of
your proxy server, if your system uses one.
-Dhttp.proxyPort=<port number>
Replace <port number> with the port
number your system uses to access the proxy server.
You can also get a list of these options in the terminal with the java -jar OmegaT.jar --help command. The OmegaT GUI is launched if no option is specified.
-h,
--help
Show usage information.
Launch the GUI and load the specified project
--remote-project
<path-to-omegat-project-file>
Download the OmegaT project from the URL specified in <path-to-omegat-project-file> , and load it.
--no-team
Disable team project functionality. Use this option if you want to prevent OmegaT from synchronizing the project contents.
team
init
SL
TL
Initialize a team project using SL and TL as the source and target two-letter language codes, respectively.
--disable-project-locking
Do not lock the omegat.project file.
On some platforms, the omegat.project file is locked by default and attempting to open an already open project in another instance of OmegaT results in an error. This option prevents that error.
--disable-location-save
Do not remember the last folder opened in the file picker.
--ITokenizer=<classname>,
--ITokenizerTarget=<classname>
Specify a source- or target-language tokenizer (using this option overrides project settings). See OmegaT.jar/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF for valid values.
--config-dir=
<path>
The folder used to read and write OmegaT configuration files. See the Configuration Folder chapter for details.
--config-file=
<path>
A file written in the Java .properties format used to specify a batch of command line options.
The options are presented as a list of
key=value
pairs. Both Java parameters
and OmegaT options can be used.
Remove the initial -D or -X
to use Java parameters:
user.language=fr config-dir="path/to/new/configdir"
Almost all parameters presented in this section can be
used in a config file. The notable exception is
remote-project.
It is possible to combine --config-file
with other command line options compatible with launching the
GUI. In such cases, options defined in the config file take
precedence over any option with duplicate functionality also
passed on the command line.
--resource-bundle=
<path>
A Java .properties file to use for interface text.
--mode=[console
mode name]
Specify a mode other than the GUI default. The following options are available:
--mode=console-translate
In this mode, OmegaT attempts to translate the files in the source folder with the available translation memories.
This is useful if OmegaT is run on a server with TMX files automatically fed to a project.
--source-pattern=<pattern>
An allowlist of regular expressions defining
the source files to process. Remember that in
regular expressions, the period and backslash
character must be escaped: \. and
\\.
Here are some typical examples:
.*\.html
Translate all HTML files.
test\.html
Only translate
test.html file in the
source folder itself. Any files also named
test.html in other subfolders will be
ignored.
dir-10\\test\.html
Only translate the
test.html file in the
dir-10
folder.
See the Regular expressions appendix for details.
--mode=console-createpseudotranslatetmx
In this mode OmegaT will create a TMX for the whole project using only the source files.
Specify the TMX file to be created with:
--pseudotranslatetmx=
<path>
The output pseudotranslated TMX file.
--pseudotranslatetype=[equal|empty]
What to fill the pseudotranslated TMX with.
--mode=console-align
--alignDir=<path>
In this mode, OmegaT will align the files in the /source folder of the project with those at the location specified by the --alignDir parameter.
The resulting TMX file is saved in the /omegat folder as align.tmx. The file types that can be aligned depend on whether the alignment is supported by the file filter. Supported filters include: ILIAS Language File, Java(TM) Resource Bundles, Key=Value Text, Magento CE Locale CSV, MoodlePHP, Mozilla DTD, Mozilla FTL, PO, RC, SubRip Subtitles, and Windows Resources.
The --alignDir parameter is used to specify the location of the data in the target language, which must be a folder containing the translated files.
That folder must contain a translation in the target language of the project. For instance, if the project is EN-to-FR, the folder must contain a bundle ending with _fr. The resulting TMX file is saved in the /omegat folder as align.tmx.
--mode=console-stats
<path>
--output-file=[stats-output-file]
Prints to that file, or to standard output if absent. Without --stats-type , detects format from file extension. The output defaults to xml.
--stats-type=[xml|text][txt][json]]]
Requires --output-file . Specifies the output format.
--quiet
Minimize the output shown on the command line.
--script=
<path>
A script file to run when a project event is triggered.
--tag-validation=[abort|warn]
Check tag issues.
Abort: Exit with an error if there are tag issues.
Warn: Show warnings without exiting if there are tag issues.
Reports about tag issues are output to the terminal window.