The translated document arrives. You open it. Immediately you see the problems: bold text that’s no longer bold, links that point nowhere, bullet lists that became plain paragraphs.

The translator didn’t make these mistakes. The translation itself is fine. What failed was format handling—the tags and codes that carry formatting got stripped or corrupted somewhere in the process.

This happens constantly in localization workflows, and it’s almost always preventable.

Why formatting breaks

Modern documents store formatting as codes embedded in the text. A bolded word isn’t just “stored as bold”—it’s wrapped in tags:

<b>important</b>

When this sentence gets extracted for translation, what should happen to that <b> tag? Several things can go wrong:

Tag stripping. Some extraction processes remove formatting tags entirely, presenting “clean” text to translators. The formatting information is lost.

Tag exposure. Other processes show translators the raw tags. Now the translator has to deal with <b>important</b> and might accidentally delete, move, or modify the tags.

Tag mismatch. The translated word might need to be in a different position relative to other words. If the tag doesn’t move correctly, the wrong word gets bolded.

Tag corruption. Complex tags with attributes can get garbled during processing. A link tag like <a href="page.html">click here</a> might end up as <a href=>click here</a> after a bad round-trip.

Each of these failures produces documents that look wrong, function incorrectly, or both.

The placeholder solution

Intelligent placeholder handling addresses this by:

1. Identifying formatting tags during extraction
2. Replacing them with simple, visible placeholders
3. Locking those placeholders so translators can’t accidentally modify them
4. Restoring the original tags during reinsertion

What the translator sees:

{1}important{/1}

The numbered placeholders are unambiguous—they can’t be confused with content, they’re easy to position correctly, and they’re locked against accidental modification. When the translation comes back with the placeholders in the right positions, the original tags get restored exactly.

Beyond formatting: what else needs placeholders

Formatting tags are the obvious case, but placeholder handling extends to:

Variables and tokens. Content like {username} or %d items that will be replaced with dynamic values. These must pass through translation unchanged.

Non-translatable strings. Brand names, product codes, URLs, email addresses—content that should appear in the translation exactly as in the source.

Inline images. Some formats embed image references inline with text. The reference needs to stay connected to the surrounding content.

Custom markup. Application-specific codes that have meaning in context but shouldn’t be translated.

Each type requires recognition during extraction and preservation through the translation cycle.

The translator experience

Placeholder handling isn’t just about technical correctness—it also affects translator productivity and error rates.

Without placeholders: Translators see raw tags mixed with text. They have to understand what each tag does, maintain tag integrity while working, and worry about accidentally breaking things. This cognitive overhead slows work and introduces errors.

With placeholders: Translators see clean, clearly marked content. The placeholders indicate “something goes here” without requiring understanding of what that something is. Work is faster and less error-prone.

With locked placeholders: Translators can’t accidentally delete or modify placeholder content even if they try. The system prevents errors that would otherwise require QA to catch.

The quality improvement compounds across large projects. A 1% reduction in tag errors on a 100,000-word project prevents hundreds of formatting issues.

Complex placeholder scenarios

Simple formatting tags are straightforward. Complex cases require more sophisticated handling:

Nested tags. Content with formatting inside formatting: <b>really <i>very</i> important</b>. The placeholder system needs to maintain nesting relationships.

Discontinuous formatting. Some formats allow formatting that spans non-contiguous content. The placeholder representation needs to capture these relationships.

Conditional content. Content that should only appear in certain contexts might need placeholder treatment to prevent accidental translation.

Bidirectional text. Languages with different text directions may need placeholder content positioned differently relative to surrounding text.

Robust placeholder engines handle these cases. Naive implementations fail on edge cases that seem rare until they appear in your content.

Validation and QA

Even with good placeholder handling, validation catches residual issues:

Placeholder count verification. The translation should have the same placeholders as the source. Missing or extra placeholders indicate problems.

Placeholder order checking. Some placeholder sequences have meaningful order. Swapped placeholders may indicate a translation that doesn’t work with the original formatting structure.

Placeholder content preservation. For unlocked placeholders (rare, but sometimes necessary), verify that any content inside them matches the source.

These checks run automatically during QA, flagging segments that need review before they become formatting failures in the final output.

Implementation requirements

Effective placeholder handling requires:

Format-aware extraction. The system must understand each format’s tag structures to identify what needs placeholder treatment.

Configurable rules. Different projects may need different placeholder behavior—what’s locked vs. unlocked, what’s exposed vs. hidden from translators.

Round-trip integrity. The placeholder-to-tag restoration must be exact. Any transformation or normalization during this step risks format corruption.

Editor support. Translation editors need to display placeholders clearly, prevent their modification when appropriate, and enable easy positioning.

The investment in proper placeholder infrastructure pays off across all content processed through the system.

The formatting guarantee

When placeholder handling works correctly, you can make a guarantee to content owners: the translated document will have exactly the same formatting as the source. Not “mostly the same” or “similar”—exactly the same, tag for tag.

This guarantee changes the conversation about translation quality. Content owners don’t need to review for formatting issues. They can focus on linguistic quality, knowing the technical delivery is handled.

For teams that have spent hours fixing formatting problems in translated documents, that guarantee is worth significant effort to achieve.

Language Ops uses intelligent placeholder handling across all supported formats, with locked placeholders, validation, and exact tag restoration. Process a sample file to see formatting preservation in action.