<alt-trans>
is not intended for having <target>
s in more than one language in each trans-unit; it's rather intended for translation match be it translation memory, machine translation matches, or simple an outdated target string which needs to be updated according to most recent changes in the source string. Having said that, in some cases <alt-trans>
is perceived as a workaround for translating what the industry calls "adaptive languages" (French for Canada is often adapted from French translation) without having separate files. As a localization practitioner who has to deal with Xliffs from various sources and presented in various schemas, I recommend to avoid this hack. It is more common and accepted to use the <file>
tag to embed trans-units for multiple languages in one Xliff file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<xliff version="1.1" xml:lang='en'>
<file source-language='en' target-language='de' datatype="plaintext" original="Sample.po">
...
<body>
<trans-unit id="1" restype="button" resname="IDC_TITLE">
<source>Title</source>
</trans-unit>
<trans-unit id="2" restype="label" resname="IDC_STATIC">
<source>&Path:</source>
</trans-unit>
...
</file>
<file source-language='en' target-language='fr' datatype="plaintext" original="Sample.po">
<trans-unit id="1" restype="button" resname="IDC_TITLE">
...
</body>
</file>
</xliff>