Duplicate Strings
Configure settings for duplicate strings to achieve the highest localization process efficiency and save costs.
Overview
Crowdin Enterprise’s localization process is based on translating source strings to the defined target languages. Source strings are uploaded to the system in localization files. Each unique source string first uploaded or added (for CSV and other formats supporting string editing) in Crowdin Enterprise is considered a master string. All other strings that are identical to the master string but were uploaded or created later are considered duplicate strings.
Duplicate Strings Management
There are six possible options to work with duplicate strings in Crowdin Enterprise:
- Show – translators will translate each instance separately.
- Show, but auto-translate them.
- Show within a version branch (regular detection) – duplicates will be hidden only between version branches.
- Show within a version branch (strict detection) – duplicates will be hidden only between version branches.
- Hide (regular detection) – all duplicates will share the same translation.
- Hide (strict detection) – all duplicates will share the same translation.
Regular duplicate detection – when comparing strings, Crowdin Enterprise considers only source texts.
Strict duplicate detection – when comparing strings, Crowdin Enterprise considers both string identifiers (keys) and source texts.
Show all duplicates
When this option is selected, all duplicate strings will be visible to translators. Each duplicate will require a separate translation.
Use case: works perfectly for projects where the same words might have various meanings depending on the context.
Show, but auto-translate duplicates
When this option is selected, all duplicate strings will be shown and automatically translated. When the master string is translated, its translation is automatically shared between all duplicates. This allows translators to check and re-translate duplicate strings if necessary.
Use case: works excellent if you want to save time but need the automatic translations to be reviewed.
Show within a version branch. Duplicates will be hidden only between version branches
When this option is selected, only the master strings that were originally uploaded to the system will be available for translation. All duplicate strings will automatically get the translations of the original strings and will be hidden in all version branches. This option is available in two versions: regular duplicate detection, strict duplicate detection. If your source files contain strings with apparent identifiers (keys), it’s better to use a strict version of this option. In other cases, feel free to use a regular one.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- The system always checks the path to the string throughout the branches. For example, even if the strings are the same in different version branches (branch1 and branch2), but their paths are different (branch1 - /localization/android.xml and branch2 - /localization/apps/android.xml), they won’t be recognized as duplicates.
- This option works only for the strings located in the files that have the same format. For example, if there is the same string in android.xml and ios.strings files, it won’t be recognized as a duplicate.
Use case: works perfectly for continuous projects with various version branches. Allows translators to work with unique strings in separate branches.
Hide all duplicates
When this option is selected, the system spots the duplicate strings in all files. Only the master strings that were originally uploaded are visible and should be translated. The hidden duplicate strings will automatically share the translations from the corresponding master strings. This option is available in two versions: regular duplicate detection, strict duplicate detection. If your source files contain strings with apparent identifiers (keys), it’s better to use a strict version of this option. In other cases, feel free to use a regular one.
Use case: works great for projects with narrow scopes where all duplicates share the same context.