Can't type in new TM, please help!

[Heather Chinchilla]

Hello,

I'm hoping someone could please help me. I'm about 1 week into the free SDL Trados 2006 trial, and I still can't figure out how to use it! The tutorial keeps talking about how to use an existing TM to do a translation, but I don't have an existing TM.

What I'm trying to do is create my own TM, then to do a translation. Someone helped me on another thread to "create" a TM, which I did. I named it and saved it, but wasn't able to type anything in it.

Could somebody pleeeease help me with the following:

1) How do I type in a TM once I've created it?
2) What is the best way to format the TM:
a) type Spanish text, press tab, type English text?
b) type Spanish text, press enter, press tab, type English text?
c) other?

Thank you in advance for any help!

[Marlene]

Hi Heather, you cannot type in a TM! Once you have created your new TM, you open the document you want to translate (for example, a word document) and, using the trados toolbar in Ms Word you choose the "open segment" button and start transating in Ms Word.
As you go on translating segments, the TM updates automatically, but you do not type in it; the function of the TM is to store all the segments you translate in your word, excel, powerpoint or html documents.
Hope it helps!

[Heather Chinchilla]

Thank you Marlene, that solves a big part of what I'm trying to figure out. I appreciate your help! I have another question, but I'll ask it in a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle.