Glossaries
A glossary pins a source term to its target translation so it comes out consistently across the whole document. It’s the difference between a name rendered twelve different ways and a name rendered once.
What an entry can hold
Each entry maps a source term to its target, with optional structure:
- Variants — alternate spellings or inflections to treat as the same term (“cookies” alongside “cookie”).
- Do-not-translate — lock the source string into the output verbatim, for names, product IDs, code identifiers.
- Forbidden targets — translations that must never be used (a common wrong rendering, a deprecated name).
- Notes — one line on why it’s pinned.
When to pin a term — and when not to
Most words don’t belong in a glossary. Pin a term only when the translation is a real decision: non-obvious jargon, a brand-voice choice, a proper noun to lock verbatim, a word with several spellings to unify, or a wrong rendering to forbid.
Skip 1:1 cognates, standard abbreviations (e.g., etc., Inc.), filenames and URLs, and ordinary vocabulary — pinning those just adds noise. Not sure? Ask Literess to build a glossary from a document you’ve already translated; she extracts candidates and you accept, reject, or edit them in bulk.
Still stuck? Ask Literess in the app, or write to [email protected].