MultiTerm Support

TermLens automatically detects MultiTerm termbases (.sdltb files) attached to your active Trados project and displays their terms alongside your Supervertaler terms.

How It Works

When you open a project in Trados Studio that has MultiTerm termbases attached, TermLens reads those .sdltb files and loads all term pairs into its matching engine. MultiTerm terms appear as green chips in the TermLens panel, right next to the blue, pink, and yellow chips from your Supervertaler termbases.

There is nothing to configure. If your Trados project has MultiTerm termbases attached and enabled (via Project Settings > Language Pairs > Termbases), TermLens picks them up automatically. Termbases with the Enabled checkbox unchecked in Trados are ignored.

Colour coding

Colour	Meaning
Blue	Regular Supervertaler termbase match
Pink	Project termbase match (higher priority)
Yellow	Non-translatable term (source = target)
Green	MultiTerm termbase match (`.sdltb`)
Lavender	Abbreviation match (matched via source abbreviation)

Green chips behave like any other TermLens chip – click to insert, or use Alt+1 through Alt+9 to insert by number.

Read-Only

MultiTerm termbases are read-only in TermLens. You cannot add, edit, or delete terms in a MultiTerm termbase from the TermLens panel. To manage MultiTerm terms, use Trados Studio’s built-in MultiTerm interface.

When you right-click a green MultiTerm chip, the Edit, Delete, and “Mark as Non-Translatable” options are not shown.

Auto-Refresh

TermLens monitors your MultiTerm termbases for changes:

Term changes –when you add or edit terms using Trados’s native MultiTerm interface, TermLens detects the file change on the next segment navigation and reloads automatically.
Config changes –when you enable or disable a MultiTerm termbase in Project Settings > Termbases, TermLens detects the change within a few seconds and updates the panel automatically – no segment change needed.

MultiTerm Termbases in Settings

MultiTerm termbases appear at the bottom of the termbase list in the Supervertaler Settings dialogue (gear icon > TermLens tab). Each one is labelled with [MultiTerm] and has a light green background to distinguish it from Supervertaler termbases.

Toggle	Behaviour
Read	Controls whether this termbase’s terms appear in TermLens. Uncheck to hide it.
Write	Always disabled –MultiTerm termbases are read-only in TermLens
Project	Always disabled –only Supervertaler termbases can be the project termbase

To add or remove MultiTerm termbases from your project, use Trados Studio’s Project Settings > Language Pairs > Termbases.

MultiTerm and AI Terminology Injection

Your MultiTerm termbases are loaded and used for AI terminology injection. This means the AI Assistant, Batch Translate, and Ctrl+T all receive your MultiTerm terminology in their prompts, helping the AI use the correct approved terms – as long as the termbases are enabled in Trados Project Settings.

Technical Details

TermLens reads .sdltb files directly using the JET 4.0 database driver built into Windows. This is the same driver that MultiTerm itself uses. If the JET driver is not available (uncommon on modern Windows), TermLens falls back to Trados’s terminology provider API for per-segment lookups.

Because the access is read-only, there is no risk of data corruption. TermLens opens the .sdltb file in shared read mode, so MultiTerm and Trados can continue to use it simultaneously.

Troubleshooting

MultiTerm terms not appearing

Check the Trados Enabled checkbox –open Project Settings > Language Pairs > Termbases and make sure the termbase’s Enabled checkbox is ticked
Check the Read toggle –open Supervertaler Settings and make sure the MultiTerm termbase’s Read checkbox is enabled
Check languages –the termbase’s source and target languages must match the current project’s language pair

Terms added in MultiTerm not updating

Navigate to a different segment –this triggers the auto-refresh check
If terms still do not appear, close and reopen the settings dialogue to force a full termbase reload