A method for representing characters in a data format, typically binary, so that the characters can be transmitted electronically and decoded properly by the receiver.
As localizers, all the text we work with is encoded for storage and transmission. If we don’t know how it’s encoded, we’ll read or write it incorrectly.
A two-step process used to ensure that previous translations are correctly matched to the original source in the translation memory (TM). First, the software matches existing translations with their original source. Second, a linguist confirms the matching of source to target.
Alignment is a great way to retain previous translations that were not completed using a translation memory tool. Done correctly, alignment preserves previous language work and ports it into a reusable format.