Marking text as "Hidden" in Microsoft Word prior to adding a file into a Trados Studio project used to be a convenient way to mark specific sections of the text as "not for translation" in a manner that was easy to revert later. Using the Word 2007-2013 filter, hidden text would be ignored altogether and would not be imported into Trados Studio.

However, since the Word 2007-2016 filter (WordprocessingML V. 2) was introduced, the way Studio handles hidden text has changed. Even if Studio is configured not to import hidden text, it is now treated as a placeholder and displayed in the Studio Editor. This produces unwanted results, such as:

- Hidden paragraphs appearing in the Studio editor as series of internal tags

- Hyperlink URLs in hidden paragraphs appearing as editable segments in the Studio Editor

- Hidden text surrounding non-hidden sentences (for example, string IDs in a .TXT-based string list) being imported as internal tags, such as the text marked in purple in this example: id_buttonCancel := "Cancel";

Previously, it was possible to prevent such text from being imported altogether, which was a clean and safe way to work with such files in Studio. The extra internal tags created by the new Word filter negatively impact TM leverage and create confusion by including unwanted content in the bilingual files. While workarounds for this issue exist, this behaviour renders common workflows more complicated and has no obvious benefit.

We suggest that the behaviour of the Word 2007-2013 filter re: hidden text be restored in the Word 2007-2016 filter, or at least that this behaviour be made available again as a selectable option (for example, under File Types > Microsoft Word 2007-2016 > Common > Extract hidden text for translation: Yes / As internal tags / No).

Best regards,

Francisco Paredes