Checking a text¶
This page is about getting a text in, picking a house style, and reading the Findings cards, which is where you make all your choices. Proofing and applying the changes have their own page.
Getting the text in¶
The Text screen is a sheet of paper. Paste your text onto it, or press Open a file and pick a .txt or .md file (or drop one onto the page on a computer). Try a sample loads a short made-up podcast transcript with the usual mix of spellings, which is the quickest way to see what Translit does. Clear empties the page, and the message that pops up has an Undo in case you didn't mean it.
The text on the left, the house styles on the right.
Translit keeps the last text you worked on, so if you close the tab and come back, it's still there.
Picking a house style¶
The four cards beside the text are the house styles. Each one shows its rule (ח and כ as ch, for example) and a few words the way it writes them, which is usually enough to tell which one a client means when they say "the way we always do it". The one with the red "in use" stamp is the one Translit fixes the text to, and you can also switch styles from the House style menu at the top of every screen.
If you've saved a client's style under My styles, it shows up under "Client styles" here, and choosing it brings back all of that client's choices at once.
When you're ready, press Check terms.
The Findings cards¶
Findings puts every term it found on its own index card. The line at the top says how many terms it found, how many are spelled more than one way, and how many changes the current choices would make.
Shabbos twice and Shabbat once: two spellings of one word, so the card says "mixed!".
Each card has the spelling it will use in large type, the Hebrew beside it, and a one-line meaning. Underneath, under "Use", are the spellings the text actually has, each with how many times it appears. The one with the filled circle is the one Translit will write everywhere. Spellings that are going to be replaced are struck through in red, and the one your house style uses is marked "house style" even if the text never uses it.
The red note in the corner of each card tells you where it stands: "mixed!" when the text spells the term more than one way, "2 to fix" when it's consistent but not in your house style, and a green "ok" when there's nothing to do. Cards marked "mixed!" come first, because they're the ones a reader would notice.
Making a choice¶
To use a different spelling for one term, tap it. That's all, and the struck-through spellings and the count of changes update straight away. Tapping the house style spelling again puts the term back to the default. If you want a spelling that isn't on the card, choose Type your own and write it in, and press Enter (or just move on).
A choice applies to that term only, which is how you make a house style your own: Modern ch for everything, say, but Shabbos for Shabbat because the client is Ashkenazi about that one word. Your choices are remembered, and if you save them as a client style they come back the next time you use it.
Terms with a plural have a second set of spellings under "Plural", chosen the same way. Mitzvot, mitzvos and mitzvahs are all plurals of mitzvah, so they're counted together and fixed to the plural you pick, while a plain English plural like Torahs simply keeps its s on whatever spelling you choose.
English words¶
Some terms have English equivalents, like Sabbath for Shabbat or Passover for Pesach. Translit counts them and shows them on the card ("In English: Sabbath ×1, left as is"), but it doesn't change them, because a translator usually means them. If a client wants them gone, tick Change these too on that card and they're fixed to the Hebrew term like any other spelling. And if a client wants the English, choose Type your own and write Passover, and every Pesach becomes Passover instead.
Capitals¶
Translit keeps capitals where a sentence needs them, so "Halacha is clear" becomes "Halachah is clear" and a word in capitals stays in capitals. The Capitals menu above the cards decides what happens to a capital in the middle of a sentence.
Keep the text's is the default, and it leaves a capital alone, which means "the Megillah" and "the whole megillah" both come out the way they went in, only spelled right. Follow my spelling writes the term the way your chosen spelling is capitalized (except at the start of a sentence or in a heading), which is what you want when a transcriber capitalized words at random. With that one on, a stray capital also shows up on the card as a spelling of its own, so you can see how many there were.
The filters¶
All, Mixed, Will change and Fine above the cards show just those piles, which helps in a long text with fifty terms. The numbers on them are how many cards are in each.
Next step¶
When the cards look right, press Proof it, and Proofing and fixing is next.