*** Please note that this feature is temporarily disabled in the latest update to SP2***
If you found this ability to export comments into the target file useful I’d be very pleased to hear in the comments to this article.
Exporting Comments
Another nice addition to Studio 2011 is the ability to include comments in your target file when translating word files.
So take this example of a translated document with three comments in there… two subsegment comments making it easier to bring attention to the relevant part of the text, and one ordinary comment at the segment level:
When I save the target I see this:
So comments added to the fully formatted target file, and using Word commenting where the location of the comment directly relates to the text highlighted in Studio.
A nice little feature… with only one drawback… you can’t prevent the comments from being exported if you add them to the document. The option is there but it is greyed out (a bug to be fixed soon 
):
So if you see comments in your target document and don’t want them then you need to remove them from your file in Studio first first:
And if you have a lot of comments and don’t want to lose them then you can use the Export to External Review if you have Studio 2011 SP2 or the SDLXLIFF Converter for Microsoft Office to export the file first and then after deleting the comments and saving the target file, import the review document straight back in to replace the comments. However you can only import the comments back in using the SDLXLIFF Converter for Microsoft Office because there has been a change to the SDLXLIFF after exporting and the integrated version in SP2 checks this to prevent you overwriting changes that may be important. The OpenExchange application is less controlling (fortunately) and you do have this installed with Studio 2011… all versions.
So you may need a workaround if you use comments and don’t want them in your file… but only for the time being and I think it’s still a useful feature.
