Failed to Save as Target. Object reference not set to an instance of an object. - Trados Studio 2017
Thread poster: Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 05:15
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Nov 6, 2019

[Note: This is specifically for Excel files, but who knows, if you’re desperate, as I was, maybe it can work for other file types too (substitute your file type where it says Excel of course)]

I spent three panicked hours last night trying to resolve this issue faced with a looming deadline, so I am posting this here in case it helps someone else:

You’ve finally finished translating an Excel .xlsx or worksheet file in Trados and when you go to save target as, you ge
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[Note: This is specifically for Excel files, but who knows, if you’re desperate, as I was, maybe it can work for other file types too (substitute your file type where it says Excel of course)]

I spent three panicked hours last night trying to resolve this issue faced with a looming deadline, so I am posting this here in case it helps someone else:

You’ve finally finished translating an Excel .xlsx or worksheet file in Trados and when you go to save target as, you get this error message:

“Failed to Save as Target. Object reference not set to an instance of an object.”

You run verify, to try and locate the error to fix it and there is nothing.

You frantically search the internet and the knowledge base for a solution and quickly find years and years and pages and pages of texts and suggestions, some of which seem so complicated that they seem like another language, and nothing seems to work. Or you may even find, sorry Trados doesn’t support this file type in that particular version format or that particular system, etc, You ultimately come to the conclusion that there is no solution, only workarounds, but not even these workarounds seem to work for you.

Apparently, not every workaround works for everyone. But this is what I did and it worked. So, for what’s it’s worth, here it is:

Workaround starts here:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Finish translating your file in Trados and save all segments to a TM (or create one if you haven’t already).

2) In Trados, Go to FILE at the top left of the screen, and select OPTIONS in the pull-down menu. From there, select FILE TYPES from the long list on the left.

3) Click the boxes (or make sure the boxes are selected) for Microsoft Excel 2007-2013; Microsoft Excel 97-2007; Microsoft 2007-2016; Microsoft 2000-2003 (or any others you may see there for Excel).

3b) Use the MOVE UP button to move Microsoft Excel 2007-2016 to the top of the Excel list to avoid this problem in the future.

4) Save and close your Trados project. Close Trados.

5) Open the source file in Excel and save it as an earlier version (ex: Excel 97-2003). You may get a compatibility warning. Click OK.

6) Save the new Excel file with a different file name and in a unique directory (not the same directory as your source file).

7) Reopen Trados and start a new project using the new file, select the TM you create and make sure you click on the PRE-TRANSLATE option.

7b) Do a test “Save as Target”, just to see if it will now work (and so you can avoid needlessly going through the remaining steps.

8) “Retranslate” the file using your TM. Hopefully, there should only be a few segments for you to translate / fix.

9) Save as Target in a different directory.

10) Open the saved file in Excel (this may open in Compatibility Mode).

11) Make the necessary corrections to the Excel file as you normally would (correct spacing issues caused by Trados, formatting, etc.).

12a) Save the Excel file and use it as is.

or

12b) Attempt to save the Excel file as an upgraded format (Example Excel worksheet or Excel 2016). This will remove the compatibility mode prompt when the file is loaded.


[Edited at 2019-11-06 16:21 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-11-07 05:28 GMT]
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Failed to Save as Target. Object reference not set to an instance of an object. - Trados Studio 2017







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