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Files, formats and limits

Which files EasyQLab accepts and what gets checked in each, whether you need the PDF, how to name the files so the language is recognised, and how big and how long a project can be.

Formats

EasyQLab compares an original (the Source) with its translations. Four formats go in:

Files of any other type are simply not taken when you drop them. A file that isn't really what its extension says shows "This is not a PDF, Word, PowerPoint or Excel file."

Do I need the PDF?

No. Word, PowerPoint and Excel are checked on their own, by reading the file. That's exact: the text, the fonts and the formatting are what the file says.

To let you see where each finding is, EasyQLab shows a page made by converting the file, labelled View of the file. It looks like your file, but "where one of your fonts is missing a similar one is used and text may break differently. The checks ran on the file, not on this image."

With and without the PDF

These eleven need the page as it is drawn, so they only run with a PDF:

In Word, the page count is the one Word wrote down the last time it repaginated, so without a PDF EasyQLab doesn't claim a page is missing. In PowerPoint and Excel, slides and sheets are counted exactly. The full list of checks is in What it checks.

PDF plus Word or PowerPoint

If you have both the PDF and its Word or PowerPoint file, upload both. You get every check of the PDF, and paragraphs paired from the live file: instantly and exactly.

1. Drop the PDFs as usual in Source and Translations.
2. Drop each .docx or .pptx in the same area as its PDF. Give it the same name with a different extension: Guide_fre-FR.pdf and Guide_fre-FR.docx.

What you'll see: the translation shows + Word. The live file is attached to the PDF with the same name; failing that, to the translation in the same language; and if there is only one translation, to that one.

When both the source's and the translation's live files are there, paragraphs are paired from the files' structure. The PDF still rules on layout, so every check runs.

Bilingual Word

Some jobs come with a bilingual Word, typically from design tools that can't export a translatable file. It is a table with two columns: the original on the left, the translation on the right, one row per segment.

1. Drop the translation's PDF in Translations.
2. Drop the bilingual Word next to it. Name it with the language so it finds its PDF, for example Flyer_spa-US_bilingual.docx.

With only the translation's Word present, EasyQLab takes it as a bilingual Word and pairs the paragraphs from its two columns. If it doesn't have that table, EasyQLab says so and goes on without it.

Size and time

Big files

Large files are uploaded to your organization's storage first and fetched from there by the server. It happens automatically: you don't have to do anything. If the server can't fetch the file, the language shows "the server could not fetch the file from storage. Try again."

Very heavy or very long documents can hit a time limit: "the server took too long and cut the request". Run it again. If a document has too many paragraphs to pair in time, EasyQLab asks you to split it in two and analyse each part.

"N pages not read"

The results still cover everything the rules checked; only the AI's reading of those pages is missing. The Summary header says it too ("final · the AI read every page", or the pages not read). See Troubleshooting.

Scanned PDFs and outlined text

A scan, or a PDF whose text was converted to outlines, has no live text. EasyQLab says so: "This PDF has no live text. It is a scan or it was outlined. Typography, text and numbers cannot be compared: only images and colour."

Naming the files

EasyQLab reads the language of each translation from its file name, looking from the end of the name backwards. Put the language code or the language's English name at the end, separated by an underscore, a hyphen or a space. Words such as final, draft, rev, v2, print, web or copy are skipped, so Guide_fre_final_v2.pdf is still French.

The region doesn't change the language: por-BR and por-PT are both Portuguese. It is still shown next to the file and, for Spanish, French, Portuguese and German, it decides the number and quotation-mark conventions expected (see Languages).

The full list of languages and their names is in Languages.

When a file isn't recognised or is left out

If EasyQLab can't work out the language, the file shows language missing: "We could not work it out from the file name. Pick it from the list: the rules the file is checked with depend on it."

1. Open Pick the language… next to the file.
2. Choose the language, or Another language… to type it.

If you analyse without picking it, the file is left out: "language not recognised · this file will not be analysed". The others are analysed anyway, and the results say which files were left out and that they don't count in the result.

More symptoms and fixes in Troubleshooting.