How to use a glossary to keep terminology consistent

When a glossary is worth building

• The document uses defined terms whose translation is not negotiable
• Several documents in a set must agree with each other
• Product names, module names, or internal jargon must never be translated
• Different teams have translated the same material before, inconsistently
• A regulator, customer, or standard dictates specific wording

Building a glossary by hand

• Open glossary management in the translation settings
• Create a glossary and add source-to-target term pairs
• Import existing terminology from an XLSX file rather than retyping it
• Select the glossary when submitting a translation so it applies to that job
• Include terms that must stay untranslated, not only terms that must be translated a particular way

Letting the system extract one for you

• The translation workflow analyses the document and proposes the terms that matter
• You review the proposed list before it is applied, so nothing is decided silently
• This suits unfamiliar material, where you do not yet know which terms are load-bearing
• The result is reusable for the next document in the same set

Which approach to use

• Manual, when you already know the terminology and it is non-negotiable
• Automatic extraction, when you are working with unfamiliar content
• In practice: extract first to find the candidates, then curate by hand and reuse it