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Articulate Localization: How to Combine Glossaries Into One CSV File

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Articulate’s AI translation glossary relies on a single CSV file that you upload. The file must contain a list of terms in your source language and their corresponding translations in all target languages.

If you have a separate glossary file for each language pair (for example, one for English to French, another for English to German, etc.) but each of them contains exactly the same terms, you can simply sort the list by source language, then copy and paste them all into the same file before uploading the CSV file.

However, if each of these separate glossary files has a different set of terms, using the process below to combine them into a single CSV file will be faster and easier than copying and pasting the entries manually. Read on to learn how.

Getting Started

We prepared a glossary template to help you combine your files into a single CSV to upload. The template consists of four sheets, described below:

  • The first sheet, “Combined,” has formulas that look up the glossary list from the three following sheets. The cells with formulas on this sheet are highlighted in green. 
  • The following three sheets are sample language-pair glossary lists that you can overwrite with your own terms. If you’re combining fewer than three language pairs, simply clear the cells on the unused sheet. You can rename these sheets based on the language pairs you’re using.

Using the Template

When you’re ready to begin filling in the template, follow these steps:

  1. Save a copy of this Google Sheets template, or download this MS Excel file.
  2. Copy and paste each of your language-pair glossary lists on the existing language-pair sheets. Use one sheet per language pair. When pasting, make sure:
    • The source language is in column A and the target language is in column B.
    • The first row has the language codes—for example, en for English, fr for French.
  3. On the “Combined” sheet, make sure each record in column A has the corresponding lookup formulas in columns B, C, and D. Otherwise, copy the formulas for each column. Here’s a quick demo showing two ways to copy/paste the formulas.
  4. Download or save a copy of the "Combined" sheet in a CSV file: 
    • Google Sheets: File > Download > Comma Separate Values (.csv)
    • MS Excel: File > Export > Change File Type > CSV (Comma delimited)

Adding Another Sheet

If you have more than three language pairs to combine, follow these steps to add additional sheets:

  1. Insert a new sheet. 
  2. For MS Excel, move the new sheet between existing sheets. For Google Sheets, edit cell A1 on the “Combined” sheet to include the new sheet as below:
    Insert this text '[newSheet]'!A:A in the FLATTEN() functions replacing [newSheet] with the name of your new sheet:
    =UNIQUE(filter(FLATTEN({'en-fr'!A:A,'en-de'!A:A,'en-es'!A:A,'[newSheet]'!A:A}),not(isblank(FLATTEN({'en-fr'!A:A,'en-de'!A:A,'en-es'!A:A,'[newSheet]'!A:A})))))
    Example: If your new sheet is named “Sheet5”, the new formula will be:
    =UNIQUE(filter(FLATTEN({'en-fr'!A:A,'en-de'!A:A,'en-es'!A:A,'Sheet5'!A:A}),not(isblank(FLATTEN({'en-fr'!A:A,'en-de'!A:A,'en-es'!A:A,'Sheet5'!A:A})))))
  3. In the next empty column in the “Combined” sheet, add a new vlookup formula on the first row (i.e., Cell E1) to look up translations from the new sheet. Use the formula below and replace [newSheet] with the name of your new sheet.
    =IFERROR(VLOOKUP($A1, '[newSheet]'!$A:$B, 2, FALSE), "")
  4. Copy this formula to succeeding rows in the same column.