SuperSearch

SuperSearch is a cross-file search and replace tool that lets you find text across all SDLXLIFF files in your Trados project — not just the file you currently have open — and, optionally, across the project’s translation memories as well. It lives in its own dockable panel, so you can keep it visible while you translate.

Matching text is highlighted in yellow in the results grid, making it easy to spot exactly where the search term appears in each segment.

Opening the Panel

There are three ways to open SuperSearch:

Method	Description
View menu	Go to View > SuperSearch
Right-click	Right-click in the editor and choose SuperSearch from the context menu
Keyboard	Press Alt+S

The panel docks at the bottom of the editor by default, but you can drag it anywhere — left, right, floating, or even to a second monitor. Trados remembers the position between sessions.

Note

Prefer fewer panels? You can host SuperSearch as a tab inside the Supervertaler Assistant panel instead of its own dockable panel. Go to Settings > General > Panels and tick Show SuperSearch as a tab in the Supervertaler Assistant panel, then restart Trados Studio. This requires a Supervertaler licence; without one, SuperSearch stays in its own panel.

Note

Quick search from the editor: Select a word or phrase in the source or target segment, then press Alt+S (or right-click > SuperSearch). The selected text is automatically entered in the search box and the search runs immediately.

Searching

Type your search query in the text box and press Enter (or click Search).

Search Modes

The mode dropdown in the search bar controls where SuperSearch looks:

Mode	Searches
Everything	Project files, translation memories and termbases, merged into one result list
Project files	The project’s SDLXLIFF files
TMs	Only the project’s translation memories — a concordance search, like Studio’s built-in Concordance
Termbases	Only your terminology — Supervertaler, MultiTerm (.sdltb) and Trados .ttb termbases (v18.20.155)

The mode is remembered across sessions until you change it.

Translation-memory results are found via the project’s attached file-based TMs (.sdltm) — read from the project settings and the project’s Tm folder. Server-based (GroupShare) TMs are not searched. TM hits obey the same Aa, .*, and Word options as file results, and the Scope dropdown maps to source-side / target-side concordance.

The TM list is re-checked every time you search, so a TM you attach to the project mid-session is picked up without reopening the project. SuperSearch searches every attached TM regardless of its Enabled / Concordance state in the project’s TM settings — use the TMs button (see below) to narrow the list.

Searching your termbases (from v18.20.155)

“Where does this phrase appear?” and “what have I called this term?” are the same question at different granularities, so SuperSearch answers both. Terminology is searched alongside files and TMs in Everything, or on its own in Termbases.

All three kinds of termbase are included, with nothing extra to configure:

• Supervertaler termbases — every termbase in your shared database
• MultiTerm — the .sdltb termbases attached to the Trados project
• Trados .ttb — the Studio 2026 termbase format

Terminology is matched in your project’s direction: a termbase declared the other way round (an EN→NL termbase in an NL→EN project) is oriented before matching, so the Src box always means the language you translate from — not “whichever column that particular termbase calls source”. This is the same treatment TermLens gives your terminology.

Searches read the terminology TermLens already holds in memory, so a termbase search is effectively instant. (Immediately after opening a project TermLens may still be loading, in which case the first search falls back to reading the database and takes longer.)

Only the termbases you have switched on are searched — Supervertaler termbases with their Read tick set, and MultiTerm/.ttb termbases enabled in Trados Project Settings. The Read column is your statement of which terminology applies to the job in hand, so SuperSearch honours it rather than searching everything you own.

Termbase hits show the termbase name in green and its kind in the Status column (Supervertaler, MultiTerm or TTB).

Note

TM and termbase results can be read and copied (via the preview pane) but cannot be navigated to or replaced — they are reference material, not document segments. The Replace bar is therefore disabled in TMs and Termbases mode. To change a term, edit it in the termbase.

Search Options

Option	Description
Scope dropdown	Choose Source & Target (default), Source only, or Target only
Aa checkbox	Case-sensitive search — when unchecked, “Hello” matches “hello”, “HELLO”, etc.
.* checkbox	Treat the query as a regular expression (see Regex tips below)
Word checkbox	Match whole words only — “cat” won’t match “category” or “scatter”. Ignored when .* is on

SuperSearch displays all matching segments in the results grid. The status bar shows the number of results, what was searched (files and/or TMs), and how long the search took.

Results Grid

Each row shows one matching segment, one TM entry, or one termbase entry:

Column	Description
Found in	The project-file name, the translation-memory name (blue), or the termbase name (green). Hover for the full path
#	Segment number within the file; for TM results, the concordance match score; empty for termbase entries
Source	Source text — matching text is highlighted in yellow
Target	Target text — matching text is highlighted in yellow
Status	Confirmation status (Not Translated, Draft, Translated, etc.), “TM” for TM results, or the termbase kind (Supervertaler, MultiTerm, TTB) for terminology

Preview Pane

Below the results grid is a preview pane showing the full source and target text of the selected result, side by side, with the match highlighted in yellow. This is handy when a segment is too long to read in its grid row. Click any result row to update the preview, and drag the splitter bar between the grid and the preview pane to resize it.

The text in both preview boxes is selectable: drag to select, press Ctrl+C to copy, or right-click for a menu with Copy, Select All, Copy source, and Copy target. This makes it easy to reuse a previous translation verbatim — select the target phrase and paste it straight into your active segment.

File, TM and Termbase Selection

Three buttons in the search bar let you narrow what SuperSearch looks at — Files for the project’s SDLXLIFF files, TMs for the project’s translation memories, and TBs for your termbases (v18.20.155). Each button shows how many items are included:

• Files (16) — all 16 files in the project are included
• Files (12/16) — 12 out of 16 files are included (4 excluded)
• TMs (3) — all 3 project TMs are included
• TMs (1/3) — 1 of 3 TMs is included (2 excluded)
• TBs (2) — both available termbases are included

Files, TMs and termbases are all discovered when the project opens, so the counts are filled in before your first search.

Click any button to open its selection dialog:

1. A list shows all the files (or TMs, or termbases) found, with checkboxes
2. Check the items you want to include in the search
3. Uncheck the items you want to exclude
4. Use Select All or Select None to quickly toggle everything
5. Click OK to apply

The Files filter applies in Project files and Everything modes; the TMs filter applies in TMs and Everything modes; the TBs filter applies in Termbases and Everything modes.

Termbases are listed as name (kind) — for example BEIJER (Supervertaler) — so two termbases that share a name remain distinguishable.

Note

These selections persist for the current session. When you switch to a different project, all files, TMs and termbases are included again by default.

Navigating to a Segment

Double-click a row (or select it and press Enter) to jump to that segment in the editor.

• If the segment is in the currently active file, Trados navigates to it directly.
• If the segment is in a different file, SuperSearch attempts to switch to that file and navigate to the segment. If the file is not loaded in the editor, you may need to open it first.
• TM results can’t be navigated to — they aren’t document segments. Double-clicking a TM row just reminds you to use the preview pane to copy the text.

Find & Replace

Tick the Replace checkbox to reveal the replace bar. Replace always operates on target text only — source text is never modified.

Action	Description
Replace	Replaces the match in the currently selected result. The segment must be in the active file — double-click it first to navigate there.
Replace All	Replaces all target matches across all files. A confirmation dialog shows how many segments in how many files will be affected.

How Replace All works

• For the active file: changes go through the Trados API, so they appear immediately and are tracked in Trados’s undo history.
• For other files: the SDLXLIFF XML is modified directly on disk. You need to reopen those files to see the changes.

Caution

Replace All cannot be undone for files modified on disk. Always review the search results carefully before replacing. Consider saving your project first.

Note

Replace respects the same Aa (case sensitivity) and .* (regex) settings as search. When using regex, you can use capture groups in the replacement (e.g., $1, $2).

Matches that span inline tags are skipped

Trados segments often contain inline tags – formatting marks, placeholders, field codes – that interrupt a run of plain text. If your search string would only match across one of these tag boundaries (for example, searching for important thing when the segment renders as important<bold>thing</bold>), Replace and Replace All will skip that segment rather than apply a destructive flatten-and-rewrite that would lose the tag.

You’ll see this in the status bar after a Replace All as …, skipped N (match spans inline tags). The skipped segments are left untouched so the formatting survives; you can edit them manually if you want the replacement to happen.

This applies to both the active-file path (Trados API replacements) and the on-disk path (SDLXLIFF XML rewrites). It only kicks in when the match genuinely straddles a tag – ordinary matches inside a single text run are replaced normally and tags are preserved.

Regex Tips

When the .* checkbox is enabled, the search query is treated as a .NET regular expression. Some useful patterns:

Pattern	Matches
\bword\b	”word” as a whole word (not “keyword” or “wording”)
(word1|word2)	Either “word1” or “word2”
\d+	One or more digits
"[^"]*"	Anything inside double quotes
\s{2,}	Two or more consecutive whitespace characters

Note

Regex replace supports capture groups. For example, search for (\w+)\s+(\w+) and replace with $2 $1 to swap two words.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Alt+S	Open SuperSearch (with selected text, if any)
Enter (in search box)	Start search
Enter (in results grid)	Navigate to selected segment
Double-click (result row)	Navigate to selected segment

Tips

• Select a term in the editor and press Alt+S to instantly search for it across the entire project.
• Use Source only scope to find segments where a particular term appears, then check how it was translated across files.
• Use Target only scope with Replace to fix a consistent mistranslation across the entire project.
• Use the Files and TMs buttons to limit the search to specific files or translation memories — useful in large projects where you only want to search a subset.
• Switch the mode dropdown to TMs to use SuperSearch as a concordance tool, Termbases to search your terminology, or Everything to see project, TM and termbase hits side by side.
• The status bar shows the number of results, what was searched, and the search time in milliseconds.
• You can resize columns by dragging the column header borders.

See Also

• Supervertaler — AI-powered chat and context
• Batch Operations — Batch translate and proofread
• Keyboard Shortcuts — All shortcuts in one place