Your First Translation
The Editor is where you spend most of your time in Prism Studio. It presents your document as a grid of segments — each row contains a source text cell on the left and a target text cell on the right.
Translation Basics
- Click on any target cell (right column) to begin editing. The active segment is highlighted.
- Type your translation. Prism automatically saves your work to the local database in real-time — there is no "Save" button because nothing is ever lost.
- Press Enter to save and move to the next segment. Press Shift+Tab to go back to the previous segment.
Confirming a Segment
Cmd+Enter (Windows: Ctrl+Enter) marks a segment as "Completed" and moves to the next one. Completed segments appear with a green checkmark indicator. You can also click the status icon to toggle between pending and completed states.
Translation Memory Assistance
As you navigate through segments, Prism automatically searches your Translation Memory for fuzzy matches. If a match is found, it appears as a ghost-text suggestion (similar to IDE autocompletion). Press Tab to accept the entire suggestion, or press Cmd+→ (Ctrl+→ on Windows) to accept word-by-word.
Working with Tags
Documents with formatting (bold, italic, hyperlinks, etc.) contain tags displayed as numbered badges like {1}, {2}. These tags protect the original formatting. Press Alt+[number] to quickly insert a tag, or use the autocomplete popup that appears as you type.
Searching Segments
Press Cmd+F (Ctrl+F on Windows) to open the search bar. You can filter segments by source text, target text, or both. The search updates in real-time as you type.
Confirm and move to next segment: Cmd+Enter
| Action | macOS | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| Next segment | Enter | Enter |
| Previous segment | Shift+Tab | Shift+Tab |
| Confirm & next | Cmd+Enter | Ctrl+Enter |
| Accept TM suggestion | Tab | Tab |
| Accept word-by-word | Cmd+→ | Ctrl+→ |
| Insert tag | Alt+[N] | Alt+[N] |