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As we have previously seen, all web pages are text files that have been written in HTML or XHTML (see ICT Course 1, Tags). Web browsers interpret these mark-up languages and then display the contents of a web page according to a defined layout.
Sometimes, for example, when working with tags, e.g. to fix an error in a translated web page or to check the structure of a web page, you might need to view the source code of a web page. In order to display the source code in MS Internet Explorer do the following:
- Go to the View menu and select the Page Source item. An editor window will open displaying the source code of the chosen web page.
- Another way for viewing the source code of a web page is by right-clicking on the text of the web page and selecting the item Page Source from the context menu.
Why is this information important for translators and translation teachers?
In general, this information is particularly useful when you need to understand how a page is built. Especially when translating and localising websites translators and translation teachers have to know which tags contain text to be translated and which tags do not. In the following example a translator should translate the value of the title attribute of the image but not the value of the class attribute:
img src="../image.jpg" title="CNC Turning center" class="small"/
In addition, sometimes after having localised a web page you might encounter display errors because, for example, your translation software didn’t recognise certain tags. In that case having a look at the source code of a web page can help you understand the error.