What are formatting tags and how do I work with them?

Take a look at this short video explainer on formatting tags

What are Formatting Tags?

Markup tags are a set of symbols that are inserted into a rich-text document to control how it looks. Some of those symbols control a document’s structure, while others can dictate how the document is formatted (i.e. Formatting Tags) or how certain parts of a document are related to each other. Unbabel supports the arrangement of Formatting Tags such as bold, italic, underline, hyperlinks, images, etc.

What are the different types of Formatting Tags?

Different types of Formatting Tags will appear in a document in different ways. 

Formatting tags that span across a section of text (such as bold, italic or underline) are always in an opening/closing pair: the opening tag is used to delineate the start of the text section, while the closing tag signals the end of the section.

This text is in bold.

Other Formatting Tags only need to appear once at a specific position in the document (such as images or line breaks). They are called self-closing tags as they don’t need to span across a text section and can open and close themselves in the same position.

This  is an image

What is a Formatting Tags task?

At Unbabel, we’re working on growing our client offering. The newest addition is translating marketing content. This content type can come with special text styling, like bolded and italicized text. We will show this special styling through small elements on the interface called Formatting Tags, which need to be positioned correctly. When you receive a task with Formatting Tags, your goal is to move them, if necessary, to match positions between source and target text. We understand that accomplishing this additional task will require more of your time, therefore, you will be paid for that added time according to your hourly rate.

What do Formatting Tags look like?

Special styling is displayed through small elements on the interface called Formatting Tags. These are usually inline elements that represent how smaller sections of a segment will look like in the finished document, as opposed to an entire segment, segment group or whole document.

Formatting Tags will be represented as pink blocks numbered according to their position in the source segment; the block numbers are simply there to help you identify matching source and target formatted sections: they do not need to maintain the same order on the target side. If a target language’s sentence structure is different from that of the source language, it will also likely have a different order of tags which is acceptable and expected.

Paired tags will have an opening (e.g. [1]) and closing (e.g. [/1]) element on the interface. Meanwhile, self-closing tags will only have a single instance.

Paired tags that intersect with each other must be completely nested within each other. In other words, the order of closing tags should always be in the opposite order of their corresponding opening tags (e.g. here).

The text and Formatting Tags that were edited in the above example would look like this in the final document.

Difference between regular and self-closing tags (default and types)

How do I edit Formatting Tags?

When you receive a task with Formatting Tags, your goal is to move them, if necessary, to match positions between source and target text within the same segment. You can do so by either:

• Using your mouse to drag and drop the Formatting Tags to their correct position
• Opening the Smart Actions menu by pressing the “/” key and adding a Formatting Tag at the current cursor position

What are some common Formatting Tag errors and how do I resolve them?

Some Formatting Tag errors to watch out for include, but are not limited to:

Misplaced opening or closing Formatting Tag

• • Definition: This is where paired tags on the source don’t have the same position on the target. To be correct, source Formatting Tags and target Formatting Tags should wrap identical content.

• • Example:
    • Source: [1]I’m[/1] Rodolphe
    • Target: [1]Je[/1] m’appelle Rodolphe

• • • Correction: [1]Je m’appelle[/1] Rodolphe

How to resolve: move opening or closing Formatting Tag to the correct position

Wrong Formatting Tag order

• Definition: A closing Formatting Tag should come after its corresponding opening one.
  • Example:
    • Source: [1]Hello[/1]
    • Target: [/1]Bonjour[1]

• • • Correction: [1]Bonjour[/1]

How to resolve: You should place the closing Formatting Tag after its corresponding opening Formatting Tag and make sure the content is enveloped.

Intersecting Formatting Tags

• Definition: Formatting Tags should hug text like layers of an onion. The order of closing Formatting Tags should be the opposite order of their corresponding opening Formatting Tags.
  • Example: 
    • Target: [1][2]Bonjour[/1][/2]
    • Correction: [1][2]Bonjour[/2][/1]

How to resolve: You should move the closing Formatting Tags so that the order is inverted when compared to their opening counterparts.

• Misplaced self-closing Formatting Tags
• Definition: This is where self-closing Formatting Tags on the source don’t have the same position on the target.
• Example:
  • Source: [1][2]Hello
  • Target: [1]Bonjour[2]

• • • Correction: [1][2]Bonjour

• How to resolve: move self-closing Formatting Tags to their correct position on the target

Misplaced Formatting Tags around whitespace/punctuation

• • Definition: This is where Formatting Tags on the source have a leading or trailing whitespace/punctuation mark on the source but not on the target, and vice versa.
  • Example:
    • Source: [1]Hello,[/1]
    • Target: [1]Bonjour[/1],

• • • Correction: [1]Bonjour,[/1]

How to resolve: You should move the Formatting Tag to the correct position taking into consideration where the whitespace/punctuation mark appears in relation to the tags.

Why can’t I remove Formatting Tags?

To be able to submit tasks, we need to validate that there are an equal amount of tags in the source text and in the target text of the same segment. Therefore, the interface will not allow you to permanently remove a Formatting Tag from a segment. If you attempt to do so, the removed tag will automatically be appended to the segment. 

If you encounter a situation where a Formatting Tag does not translate correctly from source to target, you can instead empty the contents spanned between the opening and closing tags without removing the tags themselves. This might come in handy in situations where the target language is prone to contractions or a character limit is enforced on a segment, such as in the following example:

• Source: [1]Click[/1] [2]here[/2] [3]to access[/3]
• Target: [3]Aceda[/3] [2]aqui[/2][1][/1]).

Also, this is the solution you may need to use when translating dates in English that have a superscript th, as you can see in the examples below:

• Source: John was born on April 5[1]th[/1].
• Target: John wurde am April 5. geboren[1][/1].
  
• Source: July 4[1]th[/1] is a holiday for Americans. 
• Target: Le 4 juillet est un jour férié por les Américains[1][/1].

How do I report issues with Formatting Tags?

If you encounter any problems or issues while working on tasks with Formatting Tags, we strongly recommend that you submit a support request at the following link. To help us troubleshoot your issue quickly, please don’t forget to add the following details to your request:

• Your Unbabel-registered email address
• Request subject
• Description including the task ID and/or browser URL, segment number and/or text, error messages and steps to reproduce the issue
• Language pair
• Topic
• Attachments including screenshots of the segment(s) and/or task